


Sour Girl

by dollylux



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: (The Abduction is a Past Event), Abduction, Alternate Universe - High School, Depression, F/F, Homophobia, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Torture, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Religious Fanaticism, Sexist Language, Stalking, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-28
Updated: 2016-06-24
Packaged: 2018-05-29 17:07:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 9
Words: 41,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6385027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollylux/pseuds/dollylux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A new family moves in next door to the Maximoffs, bringing someone new into Wanda's life who just may help her learn to be okay again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello again, scarletwidowers! i'm not 100% sure where this story is going, but thank you for joining me on the ride<3

It’s raining the day she moves in.

Wanda’s been grounded for something or other, most likely for backtalk during dinner when Dad thought it was a perfect time to discuss politics. Or maybe she’d forgotten to do something like empty the dishwasher or fold the pile of laundry languishing in a basket on top of the dryer.

Whatever it was, it has ensconced her to her bedroom, the place she longs to be no matter the time of day, no matter where else she is in the world.

It’s safer, here.

It’s Sunday and the rain is relentless, greying Wanda’s whole world and showing no signs of stopping. She’s set up camp on the bay window, piled up blankets until she can barely even feel the cushion beneath, stacked pillows all around her in a cradle that feels like a warm cloud.

Headphones on, Moody Blues in her ears, notebook on her thighs.

She likes to think, in the quietest parts of her mind, that maybe she could be a poet one day.

 

It had taken her six months to even approach the window again, to be near any window at all. But once she got brave enough, she barely leaves now. Sleeps here, eats here, cries here, writes here. Lives here.

Because fuck him. Fuck him for taking so many things from her, but most especially this sacred space, this place to dream. This place that is just hers.

The Benchmade Bedlam switchblade tucked under her thigh gives her the feeling of safety she craves, along with the unflinching knowledge that she will gut absolutely anyone who dares to touch her in this room without permission.

 

The moving truck pulls in sometime after two, a massive thing that backs in with the ease of someone who drives those monsters for a living, followed by a silver Honda Accord that parks on the street.

A family of three piles out of the car just as the movers climb from the truck. The family rushes to the house without umbrellas while the guys in work clothes just accept that they’re going to get soaked as they open the back of the truck and get to work.

 

The house has been empty for nearly a year, the Bledsoes divorced and on different sides of the state before the moving sign had even been posted. Now it’s being filled with new furniture, new boxes, new people.

Wanda watches the movers with an interest borne of boredom and a penchant for voyeurism that she’s had since she was little.

_She’s too quiet. Why is she so quiet?_

_She’s just shy. She’ll come out of her shell someday._

They’re all still waiting for someday.

 

It’s nearly dark when the movers leave. She watches the truck pull away and the lights in the house come on. She could move to her other, smaller window and see the house better, but she has no desire to leave her nest. Instead she watches the empty street washed out with rainwater and streetlights, watches cars obeying speed limits as they come home from church or Sunday dinner or their mistresses’ house. 

There’s a sudden flood of light from next door as the front door opens. Wanda presses herself to the glass, straining to see who it is. The knock at her own door startles her, makes her hand snatch down and grip the blade tucked under her leg, her heart in her throat before she can even register the voice on the other side.

“Baby? It’s dinner! Fried chicken!”

“I don’t eat meat, Mom,” Wanda replies, rote and annoyed, but mostly distracted. Someone’s leaving that house.

“C’mon, Wanda, you used to love--”

“I’m not hungry!”

It’s snapped this time, an end of discussion, but she’s let go of her knife and is now craned to watch the small figure emerge, her ear to the glass letting her hear the faint voice chasing the person into the late evening.

“Natasha dear, come back inside! It’s pouring out! You’ll catch a cold!”

There is no reply from the figure, from Natasha. The light disappears as the door is closed behind her, and the figure continues down the walk, toward the street.

Wanda doesn’t realize she’s holding her breath as she watches Natasha dear shuffle down the street, hood over her head that is ducked to avoid the rain. It splashes up her legs with each step, wets her dark boots and her dark pants. She doesn’t seem to care, seem to mind. Just takes step after step away from the house, past Wanda’s own house without a glance, and down the street.

She doesn’t realize she’s pressed her fingers to the glass until she sees the fogged up outlines around them, lasting long after she pulls her hand away and curls back into her pillows.

She has the strangest desire to put on her own hoodie and shoes and run after her, to get absolutely soaked in the rain and get lost with that girl who seems to want to get away just as much as Wanda does.

She wishes she could run instead of hide.

 

Wanda wakes up with a start, her cheek frozen from where it had been plastered to the window. She blinks into the dark, her eyes bleary and darting around until they adjust. She searches the street below and finds it empty except the rain and the lights, like the girl before had been a ghost. She climbs from the window on sleep-numb legs and pads barefoot to the other window to see the house next door.

With the exception of the light over the stove in the kitchen, the house is dark, resting. Natasha is probably already back inside, tucked away in her bed and dreaming. Wanda doesn’t sigh, just swallows down the weird disappointment in her throat and grabs her phone from the blankets in her nest before falling down into her unmade bed.

She fishes an Ambien out of her pill case and swallows it dry, staring at the shadows of raindrops on her ceiling until sleep finds her again.

 

“Wanda, hurry up! We’re gonna be late!”

“Shit,” she breathes to herself, yanking her jeans up onto her hips and grabbing her bag as she stuffs her feet into Vans. She’s still wearing the sweatshirt she’d lived in all weekend, her breasts only contained by the tanktop underneath. She drags her hair up into a messy bun as she hurries down the stairs, her breath minty fresh and her phone nearly dead in her pocket.

No one texts her anymore anyway.

Popularity was brief and electric freshman year, enough to get her invited to junior prom with a guy named Casey who had instructed her on how to suck his dick and promptly never spoke to her again after. She’d been friends with the popular girls, with the good girls on sports teams and on student council, and she’d been on honor roll in high school just like she always had before.

She had been taken from her bed one warm night in May, just after prom and before the finals. She’d spent the next six weeks in a basement chained to a bed with only a filthy boxspring on it, had missed finals, missed out on the cementing of summer plans, on end of the year parties. 

Amazing what an abduction will do to a girl’s social life.

She’d thrown away all of her cute short-shorts, all of her flirty little skirts, all of the halter tops that had been the scandal of the neighborhood when she’d sauntered out in them the summer before high school.

She has too many scars to hide now. Wants exactly zero eyes on her body, wants no one to even think about what’s underneath the loose cotton and faded denim. Her armor comes in the form of layers and thick rings of black eyeliner and the knife she always keeps tucked--

Shit.

“Hold on, Peter!” She leaves the front door open as she spins around and darts back up the stairs to her room. She fishes the switchblade out from under the blankets in the window and tucks it in her pocket, safely concealed by the sweatshirt that hits her mid-thigh.

She emerges outside breathless and stressed, too distracted at first to even notice the girl standing at the bottom of the driveway next door, leaning against the Accord with her arms folded over her chest. A woman, presumably her mother, is standing in front of her with the most disapproving scowl Wanda has ever seen, shaking her head like the girl is a pregnant crackhead or something.

She can’t help but stop before she gets to Peter’s car and watch the scene unfolding.

“Natasha, please uncross your arms and let me see you. You know you’re going to be late if we don’t hurry this up.”

“They’re not going to send me home on my first day, Mom,” the girl protests, her eyes bright green against the grey morning backdrop. Those same eyes dull with defeat with the woman grabs her forearms and yanks them to her sides, a leather jacket falling open to reveal an ancient-looking Hole t-shirt and a velvet choker necklace with a silver moon dangling from it.

“You know you cannot wear a shirt with text on it. And no jewelry of any kind.” The woman sighs and motions back to the house. “Go change. _Now_.”

“But, Mom, I--”

“Natasha Romanoff, so help me--”

“Fine!” Natasha pushes away from the car and starts toward the house. They both see Wanda at the same time, standing there and watching them as blatantly as she is. She ducks her head and blushes, yanking her sleeves over her hands, frozen on the spot. If she were more afraid, she’d run to the car. If she were braver, she’d say something.

She chews on her lip and digs her nails into her palm under the cover of her sleeve, waiting on one of them to speak first.

“Well now,” the woman says with thinly-veiled disdain under a mask of friendliness. “Look, Natasha dear. It’s our new neighbor. Won’t you come say hello, girl?”

Wanda shuffles over after a long pause, keeping her head down even as she feels Natasha’s eyes on her, probably thinking about how disgusting Wanda looks, probably trying to figure out how many days it had been since she showered.

_The answer is four,_ she tells her mentally.

“Hi,” she says to the grass separating their driveways, her hands coming together through her sleeves to clutch at each other.

“I’m Ana, and this is my daughter, Natasha,” the woman says, reaching for Natasha by her sleeve and yanking her over, only feet from Wanda now.

She mumbles her own name and finally lifts her eyes to them, finding Natasha looking right at her. Their gazes lock before Wanda can even stop it, those eyes ensnaring her and not letting her go.

“Hi,” Wanda says again, even softer now, like all the breath has left her body. Natasha is beautiful, that easy kind of beauty that causes car wrecks. She has a perfect face made for the backs of eyelids during fantasies, and the way she’s looking at Wanda makes her feel caught, seen maybe, for the first time in nearly a year.

“Hey,” Natasha says in a voice so low it’s nearly startling. 

“Stop staring. _Honestly_ , Natasha,” Ana snaps at her daughter, breaking the spell with twinned blinks from Wanda and Natasha. “Wanda, oh dear. You’re that poor girl who was taken from her home last year, aren’t you? Our realtor told us about you, said that the security in the neighborhood is increased after your incident.”

“Jesus Christ, Mom,” Natasha says suddenly, exasperated under a very visible current of fury. Her eyes find Wanda again who feels like her clothes have been ripped off, like there are one hundred eyes on her right now, watching her. Examining her. Natasha takes a step closer, one that makes Wanda jump, stepping back from the grass and onto the driveway. Her heart is pounding in her ears.

“Wanda, c’mon!” Peter yells from the car, waving his arm out the window instead of honking the horn, which Wanda appreciates somewhere in the back of her mind. 

“I-I’ve gotta--” she mutters, reaching for the strap of her bag with both hands to clutch at, to anchor herself with. She turns and hurries away from them and toward the car, toward the relative safety of her brother. 

“We’ll pray for you!” Ana calls after her, the words echoing in her ears long after Wanda sinks into the seat and closes the door after her, blocking out all sounds except for the annoying morning radio show that Peter likes to listen to and Peter’s own quiet frustration as he puts the car into drive and eases away from the house.

“What a bitch,” he says as they drive by the woman with her hands on her hips, watching as Natasha disappears back into the house, presumably to change. “Mom says they’re Seventh Day Adventists. It’s like a cult or something.”

Wanda says nothing in reply, just presses her fingers to the outline of the knife in her pocket and watches the shadows along the streets the entire way to school.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [rebloggable post on tumblr!](http://dollylux.tumblr.com/post/141843998836/title-sour-girl-chapter-1-pairing-natasha) (come follow me and talk to me about these amazing girls<3)


	2. Chapter 2

School is a familiar blur of voices, of fluorescent lighting and laughter and whispers and profound isolation that leaves Wanda feeling empty, nothing more than a fragile husk under her sweatshirt as she shuffles home in the late afternoon.

Peter has track Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and Wanda’s walks home are always fraught with hypervigilance, with her heart pounding in her ears and her hand tucked into her pocket, thumb on the tab of her switchblade.

The thing is, the guy who’d taken her, who had violated and fucked her up and ruined her life, has never been caught. The reporters had called her brave, had asked over and over again exactly what had happened, what she’d done to escape, how she’d managed to survive all that time.

Here, on the clean sidewalk on a brightening day while she trembles with a kind of dread that she couldn’t have imagined before last year, she doesn’t feel very brave.

She relaxes minutely when she turns onto their street, the tension easing out of her tired muscles the closer she gets to her house.

She knows it doesn’t make sense, to feel safe in the place where she’d been taken from in the first place, but she’s a pretty rational person. She knows that if she doesn’t make home her sanctuary, there won’t be a single place on earth she feels safe.

Everything she’s done since she ran barefoot through the woods and stumbled onto civilization last June has been about one thing: survival.

 

She sees the figure on the roof at the new neighbor's’ house about twenty yards out, can smell the cigarette smoke as she slows to a stop in front of it. 

Natasha is there, nestled into a corner where the roof turns only a few feet from a skylight, cigarette dangling from her fingers, smoke pluming from her soft mouth.

“Hey,” she says to Wanda, like this happens every day, like this is just part of Wanda’s walk home.

Talking to anyone isn’t part of Wanda’s walk home.

Wanda squints up at her, listening carefully for any sounds coming from inside the house, of Natasha’s hellbeast of a mother being home.

“She’s not here,” Natasha tells her, like she can read her mind. She’s barefoot. Her toenails are black. “She’s down at our new church. Probably licking taints so she can get a job there. She doesn’t want to go work for a secular accountant’s office.”

Wanda shifts from one foot to the other, both of her hands wrapped fiercely tight around the strap of her messenger bag.

“There are… religious accountant’s offices?” she finally asks. She ignores her quiet glee at hearing Natasha say the word ‘taints’ so casually.

Natasha shrugs, flicking ash from her cigarette that tumbles down onto the slate tiles of the roof.

“At churches. Somebody’s gotta gather up all that money and take it to Jesus, right?” Natasha pauses, her eyes on Wanda like she’s sizing her up. Wanda stands still and looks right back, hoping somewhere in the back of her mind that she’ll be deemed good enough. “You smoke?”

Wanda shakes her head, chewing fitfully on her bottom lip. This is the most she’s spoken to anyone besides her therapist for months.

“You wanna join me? You can just come into the house and--”

“Oh, I can’t--” Wanda shakes her head, her heart racing at just the thought of going into Ana Romanoff’s house. “N-No.”

Natasha takes a drag, her expression smoothing into something more thoughtful.

“There’s a little wooden ladder on that tree over there.” She nods to her left, to the giant Garry oak that takes up nearly one whole side of the house. “That big branch comes right up beside the roof.”

Wanda knows about the ladder. Remembers when that tree contained a little treehouse built by Don Bledsoe for Cynthia and Blake when they were younger. The ladder’s all that’s left of it now.

She heads toward it without a word, drawn by the familiarity of it and by the promise of more interaction with Natasha Romanoff.

Her dirty, checkered Vans dig into the soft but sturdy wooden planks that lead right up into the wide spread of the oak. She shoves her messenger bag to her back and crawls out onto the branch Natasha had pointed out, taking cautious steps once she gets to the roof itself.

She settles down beside Natasha, out of breath and pink-cheeked but she’s almost smiling.

Natasha is watching her as she exhales out of the side of her mouth and stubs the cigarette out on a very expensive slate tile. Wanda pulls her legs up and wraps her arms around them, balanced on the little hill of the top of the roof, and looks out over the neighborhood.

It’s amazing how far she can see up here, how vast everything looks from just a little higher up. She feels like she’s got a secret now, a vantage point above everyone else, and that little hint of control makes her feel calmer than she can recall in recent memory. 

Natasha waits her out, lets her be quiet and weird like she needs to be before she feels comfortable enough to acknowledge Natasha at all, to look over at her and almost meet her eyes.

“Sorry about my mom this morning,” is what Natasha finally says, her eyes searching Wanda’s face since Wanda won’t meet them with her own. “She has this uncanny ability to say things that feel like you’ve been punched in the solar plexus. She’s like a comic book villain.”

Wanda huffs out a weak laugh, tightening her arms around her legs and resting her chin on her bony knees through her jeans.

“Must be hard having a comic book villain for a mom,” she replies.

Natasha shrugs again, scooting down a little so she can lean back and brace her elbows on the angle of the roof.

“Sometimes,” she says. “But you get used to it. Build up your own defenses and learn how to just not listen to a fucking thing she says. She completely hates me by now.”

Wanda turns to look at her again, her cheek resting on her knees now.

“Why would she hate you?”

“Because I’m a dyke,” Natasha replies, lifting her hips so she can fish the crumpled pack of Winstons from her pocket. “She’s been in denial about it since I was little. I’ve always told her. Never knew how to be shy about it, I guess. Then somethin’ finally happened that she couldn’t ignore.”

A beat passes, and Wanda’s curiosity gets the better of her, makes her talk.

“What happened?” she asks.

“She and the rest of her bible study group caught me fingerbanging the pastor’s daughter in the Fellowship Hall,” Natasha says, all casual and easy in a way that makes Wanda’s eyes widen, makes her let out a startled huff of laughter.

“Wow,” she manages.

“Yeah,” Natasha replies, cutting a glance over at her as she lights the end of her cigarette, her eyes sparkling. “Oops.” She takes a quick drag and exhales through her nose, her bare arms smooth and pale and strangely tantalizing. Wanda thinks about her own arms, about the circles and lines of scars, about the bone bruises that haven’t healed yet. She pulls her sleeves down, completely covering her hands and looking back out over the neighborhood.

“Anyway, so that’s why we moved,” Natasha continues. “Mom’d already tried sending me to one of those gay lobotomy camps. Pray the gay away and all that. Which I think is just kinda fuckin’ ridiculous, I mean. You send a bunch of queer kids away to some little isolated place together. What the hell do you _think_ is going to happen there?”

“Wait,” Wanda says, blinking a few times as she tries to absorb all this new information. “You guys _moved_ because you got caught having sex with a girl?”

“Oh, yeah,” Natasha says with a scoff. “That was like social suicide for my mom, are you kidding? I might as well have murdered somebody. She couldn’t show her face back there again. She put our house on the market and left.”

“And is your Dad…?”

“He commutes to Portland everyday. He’s a cardiovascular surgeon at Adventist Health.” Natasha falls quiet, the cigarette burning away between her fingers as she stares off into the distance. “He’s alright, I guess. I think he hates Mom as much as I do. He’s barely home. Her only rule is that he has to be here all day Saturday for church and stuff.”

Wanda raises her eyebrows.

“Church on Saturdays?”

Natasha groans, using the back of her hand to rub at one eye, the hand coming away smudged with eyeliner. Wanda laughs, soft and awkward, something she’s really not used to doing anymore.

“It’s okay,” she says. “We don’t have to talk about… church and stuff.”

“Tell me what real people school is like,” Natasha says back, black-tipped thumb flicking ash with a deft turn of her wrist. “What do you people do? Besides orgies and virgin sacrifices, of course.”

“Not time for much else after that,” Wanda replies, a smile tugging at one side of her mouth. “I don’t know. I’m not... “ She tenses up a little, fingers digging into her shins. “I’m not very good at real people stuff, I guess.”

The quiet that follows her voice makes her heart-rate kick up, makes her shoulders pull in, makes her wish she was in her room, in her window, where it’s safe.

“When did it happen?” Natasha asks quietly.

Wanda takes a deep breath, feels the words like an unwelcome hand up her shirt, groping her, violating her. 

Ten months later, and she still doesn’t know how to talk about it. Hasn’t found the words yet.

“Last May,” she tells her as evenly as she can.

Natasha nods, not talking in that way that people do when they’re mentally sifting through all the questions they want to ask to try and find the one that will hurt the least. When she sits up again and flicks the cherry from her cigarette only to shove the remainder of it back in the pack, Wanda watches from the corner of her eye, waiting for the follow-up questions, braced for them.

“Is there a decent record shop in this town?” Natasha asks instead, reaching for the leather jacket draped over the roof and tugging it on. “I loaned that girl my Tad CDs, and now I’ll never see ‘em again.”

The breath that leaves Wanda’s body is pure relief, and the surprise at the change of subject brings grateful tears to her eyes.

“N-Not really. There’s Everybody’s Music in Vancouver, but that’s about half an hour away. You can take the bus, though?” 

“Sounds like a plan.” Natasha stands up, her jeans black and ratty in a way that tells Wanda she changed into them when she got home because they almost definitely break some kind of dress code at that Adventist high school of hers. Wanda looks up the graceful line of her body to find Natasha watching her, eyebrows raised expectantly. “You comin’?”

“No,” Wanda says immediately, on instinct and on an exhale. She stands up in stages, refusing the hand that Natasha is offering her and making it to her feet on her own, even if it’s slow and awkward and embarrassing. She fidgets with her bag, with her hair, avoiding Natasha’s eyes. “I’ve got homework. Big paper to write for English.”

“Ah,” Natasha says. Wanda’s face heats up.

“Well, I’m gonna…” She motions back toward the tree as Natasha shuffles toward the skylight.

“Just come through the house. It’ll be easier, promise.” She sits down on the edge of the skylight, her feet dangling down into the room below, her hair so bright red that it looks like it’s on fire in the afternoon sun.

“I’ll be fine,” Wanda tells her, taking one last look at Natasha before she turns around and makes her way back to the tree, her heart pounding belatedly for having spoken to someone for so long, for having an interaction where someone focused solely on her. 

It was amazing and absolutely terrifying.

 

She watches Natasha leave the house from the haven of her window, already changed into boxer shorts and writing furiously in her notebook. Natasha stops once she gets to the street, turning back to look at Wanda’s house, at her window, like she somehow knows it’s hers, like she can--

Natasha smiles right at her, giving her a little nod as a goodbye before continuing on down the street, her hands in her pockets, head down. She looks so small and alone down there that Wanda feels a pang of guilt, of regret for making her find her way to Vancouver alone from a strange city.

Maybe… maybe next time, she’ll go. Maybe if they plan it. If she knows in advance.

Her eyes dart around the street, gaze digging at the shadows between houses, looking for strangeness, for movement. Her grip tightens on her notebook as she swallows hard.

Maybe.

 

Wanda is forced to have dinner with her family, her every excuse met with a response that tells Wanda her mom has been talking to her therapist again.

She pushes the green beans around on her plate while her dad talks about work, about the hell of tax season that keeps him away from home most nights until well after dark. She finds herself thinking about Natasha, wondering if she’s made it home yet, if she has to eat with her family, too.

She hasn’t noticed that everyone has fallen quiet, is watching her.

“Wanda?” Mom ventures, her smile that strained sort of patience that apparently comes with having an emotionally unstable teenager daughter.

Her mom’s had nearly a year to perfect that smile.

Wanda shifts in her seat, her socked feet tucked together under her chair, her shoulders curling in even more at the realization of how much attention is currently on her. 

“What?” she asks, stabbing into a green bean and forcing into her mouth. She doesn’t look up.

There’s a pause, probably a look exchanged between her parents, and her mom’s voice turns sweeter.

“How was school today?” is what’s asked instead.

“Still there,” Wanda replies, not reacting to the breath of laughter from Peter’s general direction.

Mom sighs just as Dad’s fork clatters on his plate, and it’s only Peter’s sudden explosion of information that stops what is sure to be an argument.

“Oh, hey, have you guys seen the crazy family that moved in next door? The cult family? We met the mom and the daughter today. They were insane,” he says, leaning forward in his seat as he works a piece of Mom’s porkchop at the back of his teeth.

Wanda’s jaw tenses, her cheeks stained red at the words. She ducks her head again, tucking her hair behind her ear and rubbing at the side of her neck in an effort to keep a neutral expression on.

“Max told me the girl goes to that Adventist high school over on 189th,” Mom says, her eyes glinting with her terrible love of gossip. “ I didn’t even know what that _meant_ , really. Me and the girls at work looked it up at lunch, and it’s just some crazy Christian school with all these rules. First rule? _No_ makeup.”

She raises her eyebrows, taking a punctuating bite of a beet.

“ _I_ don’t wear makeup,” Wanda mumbles, pushing her plate aside and reaching for her small bowl of salad, stabbing at it viciously with her fork.

Mom scoffs, the ice clinking in her glass as she snatches it up, probably glaring at Wanda but she’s not gonna look up to check.

“What, you want me to send you over there? Pray for world peace five times a day and take classes on intolerance and enforcing institutionalized racism and--”

“Jesus, Mom!” Wanda exclaims, dropping her fork, arugula flying, vinaigrette dripping on the table in its wake. “You act like she has a fucking say in it at all!”

“Watch your mouth,” Dad interrupts for the first time before taking a few calm sips of water.

“You don’t _know_ her,” Wanda says finally, standing up from the table, her chair clattering along the wood floor. “She might hate it more than you could ever imagine. Maybe she feels trapped. Maybe her parents hate her. You don’t know. Stop talking about people like they’re on a fucking TV show.”

“Wanda Rae, sit back down and finish your--”

“I’m not eating with _Bolsheviks_ ,” she snaps, not exactly knowing what she just said but it sounds like a really good way to finish a conversation just before stomping off. 

She makes sure to slam her door and lock it as loud as she can, her heart thundering in her chest as she rushes over to her window and burrows down into her blankets, hiding beneath them and closing her eyes. She can feel the heat on her face, hear the blood rushing in her ears, and she is, amazingly, near tears.

She pulls herself up from the bay window and pads over to the smaller one facing the Romanoffs’ house, blanket wrapped tightly around her.

There are lights on in a few windows, including some downstairs, but she can’t see anyone in them, no one moving around.

She wonders if Natasha eats with her mom in silence. If they pray before dinner. If she just takes a plate into her room and eats alone. If she’s even home yet at all.

She returns to her nest and tucks into it, her temple resting against the cold glass. She feels drained after raising her voice like that, but she also feels strangely alert now, adrenaline still pumping through her.

She’ll watch for Natasha to come home. She’ll watch all night if she has to.

She drifts off just before dawn, her eyes heavy from staying open for so long, but nothing had moved on the street below all night. No potential abductor-rapists, no stray cats, and no green-eyed girls who follow Wanda down into her brief dreams.

 

Peter shoves a paper towel-wrapped strawberry Pop-Tart into her hand the second she hits the bottom step the next morning, not waiting on her to move on her own. He grabs her by the sleeve and guides her toward the car, like he’s acting as a shield between her and the house next door, just in case of any chance encounters with people who might be praying for her.

Something beneath the car door handle moves under her fingers when she touches it, and she frowns down at the door in exhausted confusion. 

She slides her hand there now with more purpose, untucking a small piece of notebook paper from under the handle that has been folded up to fit there, hidden from sight.

Wanda’s heart rate picks up, and she turns helplessly to look over her shoulder at the Romanoff house, to the roof where she hopes beyond all reason to see Natasha sitting, squinting in the bright morning sun. She sees nothing, and there’s no car in the driveway, the house quiet.

“Get in the car, kid,” Peter says from inside, the car already running, his foot probably already on the gas pedal.

“You’re only twelve minutes older,” Wanda argues automatically, unfolding the piece of paper as she slips into the seat next to her brother, her eyes darting over the quick, surprisingly beautiful handwriting.

_W-_

_So you seem like the quiet type and like you have very good reasons for it. In an effort to compromise that with the fact that I really want to know you, here’s my number. Text me like it’s going out of style, okay?_

_N_

“What’s thaaaat?” Peter singsongs, smirking over at Wanda as he backs out of the driveway. “A love note?”

“Something like that,” Wanda says with a smile, folding the note up carefully and tucking it into her bag.

 

She has lunch outside behind the school, usually just with a greasy roll from the cafeteria and a bottle of something packed with caffeine and sugar, and she’s bundled up in one of her Mom’s old oversized sweaters from the 90s today. She’s staring down at her phone while she eats tiny pieces of her roll, picked off with bitten-back fingernails and pushed into her mouth to let them dissolve so she doesn’t have to chew at all.

Back… there, he had made her eat by hand-feeding her once a day, giving her massive chunks of chicken and spoonfuls of ground beef and runny, cold eggs. She’d devoured it all in desperate starvation, too hungry to care what she was eating or how terrible it tasted.

Now she can barely eat anything at all, and there are precious little things that don’t make her gag, that don’t remind her of the cellar, of his thick, rough fingers against her broken mouth, forcing food down until she begged him to stop.

She has Natasha’s number programmed in and has a text message open, the box empty as she contemplates what she should say. 

Natasha had said to text her like it was going out of style, and if there’s anyone at all she has felt comfortable with in the last ten months, it’s her.

So, what the hell?

_hi, it’s me. wanda._

Sent.

There.

She grabs her energy drink and takes some nervous sips while she hides her phone under her bag and out of sight, not wanting to watch how quick or how slow Natasha replies. She’s probably in class. She won’t see it until she’s on her way home. It’ll take her hours to even read it, so there’s no use--

When her phone buzzes under the bag, Wanda actually gasps.

She makes a grab for it, her eyes wide, a chunk of cold roll held between her fingers as she reads the text.

_finally! I was wondering if you just didn’t want to talk. hello! how’s your day going?_

Wanda glances around, making sure no one’s nearby before she starts to type her reply, chewing on her lip to keep from smiling as she does.

_it’s okay i guess. at lunch right now. i’m sorry if i’m not much fun to talk to. not a lot of people do anymore_

Natasha starts typing a reply almost immediately.

_why the fuck wouldn’t people want to talk to you?? you’re awesome! fuck them anyway. hey you wanna hang out after school? the witch won’t be home until tonight! :D_

Wanda snorts, her lips pursed with a charmed smirk as she taps at her screen.

_i never took you for the emoji type. idk if that’s a good idea. maybe you can come over to mine?_

The bell rings, and Wanda tosses her roll into the trash nearby and hauls herself up from the cold ground, her whole body frozen, but at least she didn’t have to watch her old friends sit together in the cafeteria, living their lives completely content and without her.

Her phone vibrates in her hand as she heads inside, and the reply gives her something to look forward to for the rest of the normally wretched day.

_hey! that was an emoticon, punk. get it right ;) okay, i’ll see you later then, cutie :*_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [rebloggable link on tumblr <3](http://dollylux.tumblr.com/post/142254905196/title-sour-girl-chapter-2-pairing-natasha)


	3. Chapter 3

“Why are you in such a--” Peter calls up after her as she runs up the stairs, her palm hot from the friction of sliding up the bannister.

Wanda doesn’t reply, doesn’t even let him finish his sentence before she’s shutting her door and locking it, leaning back against it breathlessly as she surveys her room.

“Fuck,” she whispers.

It’s a mess because she’s the only one ever in it, because she has no energy to do much of anything these days, let alone spending what little she has cleaning her dark room.

She gathers all of the clothes off the floor and stuffs them into the already-overflowing hamper in the bathroom, her mind racing as she grabs an empty Target bag from her trash and starts stuffing empty bottles of water and Fruit Roll-Up packages in it.

Natasha probably has this idea of her, maybe thinks she has this light and airy room that her mom keeps clean for her, that she has tons of interesting books and clean sheets and--

Oh, God. Her bed.

She attacks it with growing panic, wrestling the sheets into something almost presentable, just throwing the last pillow back into place when she hears the doorbell downstairs.

“Shit!”

She spins around so fast that she nearly trips on her own feet, just barely catching herself on the nightstand.

“Waaaaandaaaaa!” Peter calls from downstairs, sounding a little too gleeful to be innocent. “You have a visiiiitorrrr!”

“I’ll be right down!” She yells back, her heart hammering in her chest as she yanks off her hoodie and grabs all her hair up, taming it into a slightly less insane mess in the form of a lazy, drooping bun. She’s pink-cheeked and nervous and excited, and her fingers tremble a little before they light on the doorknob.

She hasn’t had a friend in a long time.

She opens the door and starts to rush out only to be confronted with Natasha Romanoff, her curled hand raised like she was about to knock. Her green eyes fly open wide with surprise before she grins, looking Wanda over with a quick flick and smirking at what she finds.

“Were you cleanin’ up for little ol’ me?” Her raised eyebrow says that she requires no confirmation, and Wanda just sighs, deflating a little but a smile ghosts across her mouth.

“Room was kinda a mess,” she warns, taking a step back into it to let Natasha in. “Well… _is_ kind of a mess, I guess.”

Natasha hums a reply but says nothing further, just steps inside past Wanda and drops her bag absently down on the bed, her eyes lifted to take in Wanda’s room.

Wanda closes the door after her, realizing that she’s just wearing a tanktop now, that her scars are on full display. She hurries to her dresser and pulls out a paper-thin shirt with sleeves that nearly cover her hands, and she pulls it on while Natasha is drifting past her bookcase, fingers touching the worn spines. 

“You don’t have to cover up,” Natasha tells her, not looking back when she says it. Wanda stares at the back of her head in horror while Natasha eyes up at a poster from the Cinderella ballet she saw last summer in San Francisco.

“I--” Wanda stammers, wrapping her arms around herself, hands tucked into her sleeves as she lowers her eyes. “I feel… better when I do.”

“If that’s what you want,” comes the reply, just a beat of pause and then Natasha is turning to face her, giving a shrug as she meets her eyes. “But you don’t have to do it because of me. Okay?”

Wanda nods, looking down decidedly as she leans back against her dresser, needing something solid in the face of being seen so completely, of someone being _aware_ of her so much, in her own space. Her stomach flips in a way that’s not completely bad.

“So, you like ballet?” Natasha pulls the chair out from her desk and straddles it, folding her arms over the back of it and resting her chin on them. Wanda nods, shuffling over to her newly made bed and sitting on the edge of it, drawing one leg up to wrap her arms around.

“I always wanted to be one. I was never very graceful though. I was in the middle of trying to convince my mom to let me take lessons when I fell down the stairs and broke my arm.”

Natasha snorts in a way that makes Wanda grin, their eyes meeting for a second before Wanda has to look away.

“That shouldn’t be adorable, I know,” Natasha smiles. “I used to be one.”

Wanda raises her eyebrows, but something in her nudges her to tease a little.

“A klutz?” She asks.

The look on Natasha’s face is one of a competitor, of being faced with a challenge. She recognizes it from Peter, from what his face slips into when he’s about to race. She can only watch as Natasha stands up and slips out of her ratty all-black Converse, her socks mismatched and drawing all of Wanda’s attention down to her feet.

She actually gasps when Natasha lifts up onto her toes, her back going perfectly straight, her head held up but completely at ease. Her feet turn in toward each other and line up as opposites but perfectly parallel with each other, her arms lifting in perfect curves. One-two seconds pass and then she’s taking steps across Wanda’s dirty floor, her eyes forward and focused on nothing as she lifts one leg and spins in place, getting in four complete turns before she’s dropping back down.

Wanda just blinks at her, mouth parted around words that don’t exist to cover her surprise, her admiration. She lifts up from her graceless slouch and claps helplessly, much to Natasha’s apparent embarrassment.

She laughs a little as she drops back down to her feet, shrugging and glancing back over her shoulder at the poster before settling on the chair again.

“It’s been awhile,” she says after a moment of modest struggle, her cheeks flushed in what Wanda can tell is bashfulness instead of exertion. “I stopped a couple of years ago. Mom never liked me taking it, so she refused to drive me places. And I was getting callbacks for auditions, and…”

Another shrug, her answer to everything, it seems.

“Anyway. Hey! You can totally do it. Want me to show you?”

She hops up, looking all determined again, but this time it’s focused on Wanda. Wanda whose eyes widen as she leans back, shaking her head when Natasha takes a step toward her.

“No,” she says, maybe more harshly than she means to. It stops Natasha in her tracks, her eyes widening before she schools her face into something more casual. Wanda clears her throat and wraps her arms around her crooked leg again, her eyes lowering and then falling closed.

“Sorry, I just…” she tries to explain, forcing herself to breathe normally. “I just really, really don’t like being touched.”

“No, hey. I get it.” Natasha approaches slowly now, careful like Wanda is a hurt fawn, and Wanda wishes she could say it’s unwarranted, but she can’t help but be aware of how she curls into a tighter ball on the bed, making herself small just in case Natasha gets close.

“Sorry,” she mumbles, repeating herself, squeezing her eyes shut tight again and forcing herself not to rock in place.

“For someone who doesn’t like to be touched, you sure are making it hard for me not to want to hug you right now,” comes Natasha’s quiet voice from her right, not touching at all but her warmth is there, and there’s an incredible comfort in it that Wanda can’t quite explain.

Natasha gets up after a few beats of silence, her socked feet quiet as she crosses the room to Wanda’s stereo.

“Can’t believe you have real CDs, too,” Natasha says, sounding pleased. “Care if I put something on?”

Wanda shakes her head, unfurling from where she’s wrapped around herself and stretching out on one side of the bed, careful to stay contained, her hands resting on her stomach, feet crossed at the ankle. 

The soft synth of a Young Summer song starts up, and the familiarity of it makes her smile.

“This is pretty good, for new music,” Natasha declares as she sinks down on the bed, taking obvious care not to touch Wanda as she sprawls on the other side of it on her stomach, folding her arms up on the pillow and resting her head against them. “Who is it?”

Wanda can feel Natasha’s gaze, can feel her cat-shaped, bright eyes on her like a touch, and she glows quietly under it, closing her eyes and letting Natasha look.

“Young Summer? They’re one of my favorites. They’re coming to Portland in a couple of days.”

“Are you gonna go?”

Wanda laughs from somewhere deep where it hurts, a smile not making it to her mouth.

“Yeah, right,” she replies in a mumble. “I don’t really go anywhere, in case you hadn’t noticed. Especially not alone.”

The quiet stretches out between them, making her worry that she’s made Natasha mad, that she sounds even more pathetic than she feels, that Natasha thinks she’s a loser. She takes a deep breath that she lets out slowly. 

“Are you a lesbian?” she asks Natasha, her lashes fluttering but she doesn’t dare open her eyes, doesn’t dare look over and catch any expression Natasha might be making.

“Yeah,” Natasha says, unruffled and immediate. A beat. “What about you?”

Wanda shrugs, her face heating up but she manages to stay mostly calm.

“Dunno,” she says honestly, thumbnail trailing along the bottom edge of her shirt. “I’ve only ever been with guys. Well… one guy. Besides… you know.”

“Mm.” 

Wanda tries and fails not to fidget in the quiet after that sound, like Natasha is thinking. 

“Did you like it?”

Her heart rate kicks up.

“Like what?” she ventures.

“Being with that guy,” Natasha replies, her voice closer, like she’s a little nearer. Wanda opens her eyes into slits and looks over out of the corner of them.

“It was…” Wanda starts, trying to find the right words for something that happened before the abduction, for something that seems like a lifetime ago, that seems so small and inconsequential now when before it had meant absolutely everything. “...Kinda shitty, I guess. He just made me… um.”

“Suck his dick?” Natasha supplies helpfully.

“Yeah,” Wanda laughs, cheeks burning even hotter. “It wasn’t bad, I guess. It was weird. Like my mouth was this whole new thing, wasn’t a part of me before and then it was there and it was just… for doing that.”

“Did he get you off, too?”

Wanda barely manages not to snort.

“No,” she replies with a shake of her head, staring up at the smooth white ceiling. “We did it in his truck, in the driveway out there. Afterwards, he reached over and opened the door for me and said he’d see me Monday.”

Natasha scoffs, a sound that pleases Wanda somehow, makes her smile.

“Was he your boyfriend?”

“No. Just… just a guy. A junior. And he asked me to prom with him and I said yes because… I mean, I was a freshman, and I got asked to prom, you know? I wasn’t gonna say no.”

“So, he took you to prom, showed you off, got you to give him head, and basically dumped you?”

Wanda tries to shrug but it’s awkward to do lying down, so she just kind of tips her head toward Natasha a little.

“Basically,” she agrees. “Didn’t ever really talk to me again after that.”

“Dick,” Natasha mumbles. “So, that was it, huh? Your grand foray into dating?”

“Yeah,” Wanda says softly, mentally forcing herself to fast-forward through the basement, through being chained to that bed, through the blood and the screaming and the begging that never, ever mattered. “More or less.”

“You should try girls. Much smaller percentage of dicks,” Natasha informs her, only inches away now, cheek resting in her hand, her smile sweet and teasing when Wanda finally looks over at her. She smiles back, teeth catching on her bottom lip as she ducks her gaze from those eyes. 

“Obviously,” Wanda retorts, making Natasha grin and bark out a laugh as she turns to sprawl on her back, their arms so close Wanda can feel the line of heat all up the side of her body. But Natasha keeps her word, doesn’t touch.

“Really is too bad about the no touching thing,” Natasha says on an exaggerated sigh. “I was gonna ask you to help me shave my head.”

Wanda’s eyes fly open wide, head turning on the pillow to stare at Natasha.

“You want to _what_?”

“I’m sick of this shit,” Natasha declares, reaching up to grab a handful of her bright red hair and tugging on it in annoyance. “The school has so many goddamn rules about what I can and can’t do to it, and I finally found a loophole.”

“They never said you couldn’t shave your head,” Wanda says with wonder, shaking her head in amazement before she pushes herself to sit up, leaning back against the headboard. “You’re braver than I am.”

“I don’t know about that,” Natasha replies, sitting up too, draping her arms over her legs in those same black jeans. “But I’ve got the trimmers and everything. Just hard to see by myself, you know?”

Wanda chews on her lip, not thinking about the shaving part so much as the close quarters, all the touching that would push through every one of her comfort zones.

“And, hey, look at it this way,” Natasha says, meeting her eyes again, “it’s not so much me touching you as it is you touching me. You’re in total control.”

“Hmm,” Wanda says, eyes trailing over all of Natasha’s hair, already thinking about where she would start.

Natasha grins.

“Yeah?”

Wanda laughs, shaking her head as she pushes up off the bed.

“Yeah, why not?”

 

“What first?”

They’ve moved the antique, full-length mirror from her parents’ room in front of her desk chair that Natasha is once again straddling, a towel wrapped around her shoulders, her hair nearly touching her shoulder blades in such pretty, thick waves that the idea of cutting it all off is already making Wanda feel regretful.

“Gotta brush it out,” Natasha says, grabbing the brush she’d brought with her and dragging it roughly through her hair, yanking so hard that Wanda gasps in sympathy, snatching the brush from her hand without touching her fingers and staring at her reflection in the mirror.

“What did your hair ever do to you!?”

She takes the brush from Natasha and takes a deep breath, focusing on the hair and not the person attached to it as she drags it from the hairline all the way down, pausing when she gets to a snag to brush it out more carefully. She works methodically, eyes down, only touching her hair and not her ears, her neck, her forehead.

Natasha relaxes under the movements, falling quiet and soft in a way that Wanda has never seen her, like she’s actually content here, letting Wanda do this.

“Your hair is so pretty,” Wanda can’t help but tell her, running her fingers through it to make sure she got rid of any snags. It’s shiny and thick between her fingers, a fiery copper that looks hot to the touch in the sunlight from her windows. 

“Mm,” Natasha replies, her head moving easily with Wanda’s movements, voice gruff like she’d been dozing. “Too thick. ‘s drivin’ me crazy. Just pull it all up into a ponytail. We can hack off most of it like that and work our way down.”

Wanda gathers all of it up in a loose ponytail, wrapping a hair tie around it and letting it swing down from it, touching the top of Natasha’s spine. She grabs up the scissors Natasha had brought with her, fidgeting with them as she looks at Natasha’s reflection again, their eyes finding each other.

“Are you sure?” she has to ask.

Natasha smirks at her, eyes glinting bright.

“Do it, babe.”

She sinks the scissors in, getting the fat bulk of the ponytail caught between the blades as she starts to cut into it, only getting a little at a time, and her heart is racing by the time she gets to the end and she’s holding Natasha’s former hair in her left hand, held together by a bright pink elastic.

“Yeeesss!” Natasha exclaims, running her hands through her hair that falls to either side and hits high on her cheekbones. She turns to take the ponytail from Wanda’s hand, staring at it for just a second before dropping it onto the newspaper they have spread out beneath them.

She grins at Wanda in the mirror, holding up the hair clippers for her to take.

“Keep goin’. Be fearless.”

Wanda scoffs at the utter impossibility of that, but she can’t help the smile tugging at her lips. She refocuses and starts at the nape of Natasha’s neck, moving as slow and careful as she can as she starts to shave her head. It’s almost rhythmic, her progress evident instantly as more and more hair falls away, landing on Natasha’s shoulders or on Wanda’s bare feet.

She pauses when she gets near her ear, not sure how to proceed.

“I don’t…” she starts, licking her lips and shifting her weight from one foot to the other. “I, um--”

“Here,” Natasha says, somehow reading her mind and reaching up to push her ear down, giving Wanda room to shave the hair alongside it. Wanda’s too embarrassed to thank her, just lowers her eyes and starts up again, being careful not to get too close to bare skin even though there’s a guard on these clippers that seem to be protecting Natasha from the blades.

She leaves a big chunk down the middle of her head, moving over to the right side and shaving it too, only a mohawk left after about ten minutes. She pauses, glancing up at Natasha in the mirror, raising an eyebrow at her.

“I dunno, I kinda like it,” she says, completely unable to hide her smile.

Natasha squints at her reflection, grinning as she tosses her short, mohawked head back and forth, letting the hair fall across her forehead and into her eyes.

“I think I could rock it,” she agrees, lifting her eyes to wink at Wanda in a way that makes Wanda’s stomach twist up, her cheeks warm. “But I think I’m gonna stick to shavin’ the whole thing.”

“Yeah?” Wanda’s fingers twitch to touch the buzzed sides of her head but she turns her attention back to the task at hand, pressing the trimmers to the nape of her neck after she gets a nod from Natasha, dragging them up all the way to her forehead. Just like that, all her hair is gone except for a faint, soft spread of red that feels like velvet where it drags against Wanda’s knuckles as she finishes up with a few uneven places.

Natasha is quiet again, and Wanda can feel her eyes on her instead of her newly shaved head. She turns the clippers off and takes a deep breath, only hesitating for a second or two before she runs her hand over Natasha’s head, wiping away the tiny little hairs still clinging loose to it. Natasha moves with her, making a quiet, pleased sound in her throat as Wanda strokes over her scalp, not lingering but she would be lying if she said she wasn’t savoring this: the quiet between them, the sensation of almost unbearable softness under her fingertips, this harmless, safe connection with another person that has all but removed most of the fight-or-flight response she usually feels when she’s not alone.

“There,” she says finally, her voice shaky and nearly a whisper. She sets the clippers on her desk and helps Natasha out of the towel. She watches her stand up and approach the mirror, her eyes zeroed in on her own reflection as she examines her shaved head from every possible angle. She ends up staring at herself again head-on, and her almost blank face transforms into pure joy when she grins at last, spinning around and turning that happiness on Wanda.

“You’re fucking amazing,” she tells Wanda, reaching up to rub her head, laughing in short, amazed bursts and hopping up and down in place a few times. Wanda laughs, can’t help it, shaking her head as she gathers the newspaper and wads it up, setting Natasha’s ponytail on the desk next to the clippers instead of throwing it away.

“Do you like it?”

The words are soft, almost unsure, and they draw Wanda’s attention right up, making her look right at Natasha, really look at her. She’s a stunning girl, all delicate, up-tipped angles like the flourish at the end of a letter, a perfect mixture of symmetry and exaggerated features, her mouth soft and full like it was drawn by a horny teenage boy, her eyes wide and pretty without any makeup, a chameleon kind of green that is dark today with her black tanktop and black jeans. The lack of hair only accentuates it all, only keeps the attention her beautiful face, making it the focus, the showcase, no teasing or hiding under long waves or bangs or curls.

She’s made herself unquestionably, almost painfully, gorgeous.

“I… I love it,” she finally says, her throat tight with the truth of it, so earnest that Natasha apparently sees it. Her smile is a bright line of amazing shyness, and she shakes her head as she gathers the supplies up and stuffs them back in her bag, tossing the ponytail in at the last minute.

“Thanks,” Natasha says when she gets everything zipped up, hands stuffed in her pockets, her smile unwavering but her eyes are lowered. “For helping me.”

“Sure,” Wanda smiles, arms folded over her chest, the few feet between them seeming like a lot after spending time so close to her.

“I better, uh,” Natasha clears her throat, stuffing her feet into her shoes and pulling her bag up onto her shoulder. “Get outta here before your parents get home and think you’re harboring a fugitive skinhead.”

“O-Okay.” Wanda wants to tell her not to leave, wants to ask her to stay for dinner so her parents can meet her and see that she’s normal, she’s even a little beautifully weird, nothing at all like her crazy mother and all the other kids that probably go to that high school of hers. But she doesn’t have a spine for those kinds of things, never has, so she just steps out of the way when Natasha heads toward her and the door.

Natasha pauses in the doorway, her smile small and unreadable, something so intimate that Wanda feels it like fingertips along her cheek. She shivers minutely, wrapping her arms around herself and wiggling her fingers in a goodbye.

“I’ll text you tomorrow,” Natasha says, finally blinking like she’s waking up out of a thought. She brings her fingers to her mouth and kisses them, waving them at Wanda before she’s gone, thumping down the stairs so loud and gracelessly that Wanda can’t believe that was the same girl who just did a pirouette in her bedroom only an hour ago.

She drops the newspaper into the trash after she closes the door behind her, leaving the mirror and the chair for the moment as she hops into her bay window and looks down at the street, watching Natasha practically run next door, looking like a stranger without her beautiful red hair.

But Wanda will get used to it.

 

“Where is she?!”

The words are quiet, muffled, like they’re coming from somewhere else. Wanda tenses up in her sleep, a whimper caught in her throat that doesn’t quite make it out.

“Tell me where she is! I need to speak to her _right now!_ ”

Wanda’s eyes snap open, her mind rushing into wakefulness, into reality where that voice is still echoing in the house.

She’s still disoriented from sleep as she pushes up in bed, the early morning light greyed behind her curtains. She knows that voice, has heard it before, but she can’t really--

Ana Romanoff.

“Oh, god,” she mumbles, hesitating for only a second before she’s hurrying out of bed and opening her bedroom door, the voices downstairs growing louder, Ana’s louder than the others.

She makes her way downstairs like she’s heading for an execution, each step harder to take than the last. Her mom is standing in the doorway, the door only barely open enough for her to look out of while Peter stands off to the side like a last line of defense in case Ana breaks through.

“Lady, I don’t know what your deal is, but you seriously need to calm--”

“I see her!” Ana says, interrupting Magda and pushing at the door to open it more. She comes into view, her auburn hair pulled back into a tight bun, her cardigan just as bland as her khaki skirt. Her face is contorted with rage at the sight of Wanda, and Wanda freezes as her foot leaves the last step, braced to turn back around and run upstairs. “Don’t you dare walk away from me, young lady! I need to speak to you!”

“How about you not talk to my daughter like that? Huh?” Magda throws her arm up and physically bars Ana from coming into the house, Peter looking between Ana and Wanda like he’s at a tennis match, his eyes comically wide and uncomprehending. 

“Did you set Jesus on fire or something?” he hisses at Wanda, apparently loud enough for Ana to hear.

“No, you _heathen!_ ” Ana practically spits at Peter, glaring daggers at him before she looks back at Wanda with a sneer. “She shaved my daughter’s head!”

All three of them are staring at Wanda now, her mom amazed and slack-jawed.

“...Did you?” Magda finally asks.

Wanda blinks at her, bleary-eyed from sleep and defiant in the face of this woman’s hatred. She folds her arms over her chest and shrugs.

“She asked me to,” she replies.

“You don’t have to aid in her sinful lifestyle!” Ana screams at her, her hands thudding against the door as she tries yet again to force it open, to get past the wall of Maximoffs on the other side.

“Bitch, _listen_ ,” Magda starts, pressing her hand to the center of Ana’s chest and pushing her back a few steps, getting her away from the doorway, “if you even try to lay a finger on my daughter, I will beat your ass all the way to Bethlehem and have you arrested for trespassing. Got it?”

Ana shakes where she stands, her quiet fury something terrifying to behold as she looks between the three of them. Wanda only stares back, stunned at her mother’s words, at the fact that this is all happening before 8am.

“Got it?!” Magda snaps.

“This isn’t over,” Ana hisses, pointing a rigid finger right at Wanda, baring her teeth at her before she turns on her well-cushioned heel and stomps off the porch.

“The fuck it’s not!” Magda yells after her. “Go pray about it, you psychotic bitch!”

“Stay away from my daughter!” Ana screams from the end of the walkway.

“Mom, the _neighbors_ ,” Peter whispers, grabbing Mom gently by the arm to tug her back inside.

“I don’t give a shit,” Magda says loud enough for Ana to hear before she finally sighs, slamming the door and making sure to bolt the lock. “Seriously, what the hell is _with_ that woman? You didn’t get her _pregnant_ , for fuck’s sake.”

Wanda blushes for that for some reason, ducking her head as she wraps her arms tightly around herself, waiting for the inevitable reprimand.

“Did you shave that girl’s head?”

A pause. Wanda nods, glances up at her mother.

Magda smiles.

“Is she your friend?”

No pause.

“Yes.”

“Then don’t let that woman take her away from you,” Magda tells her, her hair still damp from the shower, foundation applied but nothing else. She takes a step closer to Wanda and raises her eyebrows at her. “Got it?”

Wanda smiles at her mom for the first time in months.

“I won’t.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry it's taken so long to get this one posted. i've been going through kind of a dark time and while you would think that writing wanda's mindset would be easy in such a mental state, you would be wrong. this chapter is almost 9k and contains a detailed description of wanda's abduction which includes mentions of rape, torture, and a resulting, briefly spoken of, miscarriage. i've been working on this chapter for nearly two weeks, and i just needed to post it and get it out there. ahh.
> 
> it's not all dark though! promise. love you guys<3

Wanda’s phone vibrates in the pocket of her hoodie during Chemistry. She glances around and finds that, of course, no one is paying any attention to her. She tugs her phone out and curls down around it as she unlocks it.

_sorry about my mom. she decided she could only yell at me for so long before she had to find somebody who actually reacted. and i’m sorry it was you. :(_

Wanda smiles, tapping out a reply as Ms. Van Dyne drones on about chemical compounds or something.

_it’s okay. promise. my mom kind of went off on her and she left pretty fast. I just hope she didn’t take the joy from your decision._

The bell rings, and Wanda takes her time gathering up her things while Natasha replies. A picture has come through by the time she picks up her phone again, a simple shot of Natasha with her newly shaved head, her eyes rimmed in dark kohl that makes them so green Wanda’s breath catches in her throat. She’s smirking at the camera, her mouth tugged up to one side, a dimple flashing.

_any joy she might’ve killed has been renewed by the horror of my new classmates. :)))_

Wanda grins at her phone, opening the picture to stare at it full screen for a long moment, amazed that this daring, gorgeous girl is texting her in the middle of the day when she could be talking to anyone. She saves the picture and goes back to the text conversation, staring at Natasha’s last text as she struggles to make a decision of her own.

“Fuck it,” she mumbles to herself.

“I’m sorry?” Ms. Van Dyne says from the front of the classroom where she’s texting on her own phone, the classroom empty now except for Wanda.

“N-Nothing,” Wanda replies quickly, grabbing her bag and hurrying toward the door. She navigates the hallway with her head down, hiding under her hood until she can get to the bathroom where she ducks into a stall and opens the camera on her phone before she can second guess herself.

She takes a picture of herself looking up at the camera from under her hood, all bundled up safe in her hoodie. She’s not wearing any makeup and looks as tired and pale as she always does, and she only lets herself critique the picture for a few seconds before sending it on, figuring that Natasha’s used to how she looks anyway.

She types out and deletes a text for nearly a full minute before deciding on:

_should’ve sent a warning with that picture, sorry. i’m sure i look like shit._

She regrets the text as soon as she sends it, rolling her eyes at her needless self-deprecation. But it’s done, and she hides in the bathroom stall until the warning bell, staring at the graffitied door and decidedly avoiding her phone.

She only looks at it when she has to leave, her cheeks already burning from the anxiety of it all. 

_you’re right. you shoulda sent a warning with that picture. gotta warn a girl when you send over something that beautiful. <3_

“Oh, Jesus,” she breathes, her entire face hot now. She shakes her head as she hurries to reply, grinning as she shuffles down the hall.

_you’re good at lying via text!_

Natasha replies almost instantly.

_not lying at all. wish i was in that hoodie with you._

Wanda stops right there in the hall outside of English, leaning against somebody else’s locker and focusing on breathing. A warmth washes through her that is so strange it’s almost alarming, tugging at her insides in a curling pang. 

She replies with just a smiley face before ducking into class just as the bell rings, and it’s only later, while she’s reading _Macbeth_ , that she recognizes the sensation Natasha had made her feel, something she hasn’t experienced in so long that it’s almost brand new:

Arousal.

 

It’s a chilly walk home, but Wanda doesn’t mind.

She’s stared at the picture Natasha sent her earlier so often today that it’s etched into her brain, and it accompanies her the whole way home.

There’s an envelope tucked into the front door when she gets there, a big W scratched onto the front. She snatches it like someone is going to take it from her, glancing over at the Romanoff house out of the corner of her eyes, fear gripping her at the sight of Ana’s car.

She hurries inside and up to her room, not opening the envelope until she’s got her door locked. She pulls out a slip of paper wrapped around something thicker, reading over the note written on it before she starts to unfold it.

_I’m one heartbeat away from missing you again._

Wanda frowns, her eyebrows drawing together. It’s a Young Summer lyric, she recognizes right off. And it has to be from Natasha, but--

She pulls out the things tucked under the note, struck absolutely dumb at what she’s now holding in her hand.

Two tickets to the Young Summer show tomorrow night in Portland.

Natasha got her tickets to see one of her favorite bands.

She doesn’t realize that her hands are trembling, that there are tears blurring her vision. She doesn’t know how long she stands there, staring in absolute, overwhelming amazement, but she starts when she hears the door shut downstairs, her mother’s voice calling upstairs.

“Punkin, you home?”

Wanda blinks a few times, tears tumbling down her cheeks as a smile breaks across her face.

“Yeah, Mom!” she replies, folding the note back around the tickets and tucking it all into the envelope. Her phone buzzes in her pocket and she can’t get it out fast enough.

_probably a little forward, i know. but a friend who works for a radio station back home owed me a favor. i’m technically grounded, but… see you tomorrow night? :)_

Wanda laughs, more tears falling as she does, a joy so pure filling her that she doesn’t know if she’s ever felt this happy. Or if she has, it’s been blocked up by everything that’s happened, and she’s feeling it for what seems like the first time, right now.

_god yes. i don’t even know what to say. thank you. so so much. we can borrow my brother’s car. i can’t wait!_

For once, she isn’t worrying about having to be around a ton of people, of being somewhere unfamiliar, of running into Him again. She can’t get past spending hours with Natasha and worrying over what she’s going to wear.

 

“Peter, just give me the keys.”

“I filled up the tank,” he says for the fifth time, the keys clutched in his hands as he chews on his lip. “Checked the oil and everything. Windshield wiper fluid. You should be--”

“It’s not going to _matter_ because the concert will be over by the time you give me the keys!”

She wiggles her fingers expectantly, her eyebrows raised. He gives a pained sigh and holds the keys out, letting them almost hit Wanda’s palm before he lifts them back up again.

“Put the parking break on when you park, even if it’s not on a hill. You never know if--”

“Peter, just give her the damn keys, you little shit,” Magda yells from the kitchen.

“Fine,” he grumbles. The keys hit her palm and she’s heading for the door before they even finish jingling.

“Bye!” she calls, only hearing the muffled replies from the other side of the door. She steps off the porch and Natasha appears from the side of the house, her leather jacket on, boots beat up and soft looking, her pants those tight black jeans Wanda had seen on her the other day.

“Hey,” Wanda says quietly, grateful for the shroud of dusk around them that will more than likely keep Natasha’s mother from seeing them leave.

“Wow,” Natasha replies, coming to a stop just a couple of feet from Wanda, her eyes wide like she means it. “You look… I mean. Wow.”

Wanda blushes, biting on her lips to keep from smiling. She shakes her head, dismissing the compliment and leading them to Peter’s Prius waiting patiently for them in the driveway.

She glances down at herself, at her white off-the-shoulder top and her high-waisted jeans, and thinks maybe she’d chosen well.

They pile into the car and Wanda starts it, feeling Natasha’s eyes on her even still. She dares a glance over at her, not catching her eyes but definitely seeing the expression on her face, even in the dark.

“Guess Mom was right about taking a shower,” she jokes, tugging her seatbelt over her chest and carefully backing out of the driveway.

“I’ve just… I’ve never seen you with your hair down,” Natasha says, all hushed and awed, leaning in closer like she wants to reach over and touch. Wanda’s heart races in her ears, blocking out the bluegrass song playing on the radio. “You just look amazing, is all.”

If she ever manages to stop blushing every time Natasha speaks to her, it’ll be a miracle.

“Thanks,” she finally says, too soft to play off as anything but shy. She’s grateful for Natasha not bringing up the fact that her arms are uncovered, her fading but still visible scars on display. It had been her sticking point about the shirt that she hasn’t worn in over a year, and she’d taken a sweater on and off so many times that Magda had eventually hidden it from her.

_“It’ll be dark in the theater anyway,” Magda had said, the sweater hidden behind her back. “No one’s going to see them.”_

“Is your mom suspicious?” she says after a pause, having to fight to keep her eyes on the road and not look over at Natasha like wants to do with growing impulse.

“Nah,” Natasha shrugs, laying the seat back some and settling in, letting her legs sprawl in a way Wanda’s never really seen a girl do. Not that she’s looking over.

Damnit.

“She locked my bedroom door and has a bible study group coming over in about twenty minutes. She won’t notice until morning, most likely,” Natasha continues, reaching up to idly thumb through the radio stations.

“She just locks you in your room?” Wanda asks incredulously, the long falls of her hair dragging over her bare shoulders as she looks over at Natasha this time. “Isn’t that, like. Child abuse?”

Natasha falls quiet, uncharacteristically so, and Wanda immediately regrets her choice of words.

“I’m… I’m sorry. That’s not--”

“It’s awesome that your brother let you borrow the car so we didn’t have to take the bus,” Natasha says in a little bit of a rush, refusing to let Wanda finish her thought, her voice edged in a desperation Wanda hasn’t ever heard out of her. It’s disconcerting, but she knows exactly what it’s like to not want to talk about something. So she goes along with it.

“Yeah, he’s awesome most of the time. Just worries about me too much.” Her hand twitches on the wheel from the need to reach over and touch Natasha’s hand, something so strange that she dismisses it almost immediately. “And besides, this is technically _our_ car. We just got a couple of months ago for our sixteenth birthday. I just haven’t really… I don’t like to drive, most of the time.”

“What do you like to do?” That warm pillow-voice again, like something Wanda could reach out and touch, if she wanted to. Her grip on the wheel loosens ever so slightly.

“Dunno,” she shrugs, trying to come up with a good answer, something clever that won’t make her sound like the reclusive, fearful person she’s become. “I like music a lot? I like going on Bandcamp and finding new artists. I keep a notebook of my favorite lyrics.” 

She chews on her bottom lip, shifting in the seat as she gathers the courage to say what she wants.

“That, um. That lyric you wrote in the note the other day? That’s in there.”

“Mm,” Natasha says, sounding pleased. She’s practically turned in the seat now, facing Wanda, and Wanda can smell her, the cigarettes and worn leather of her; two smells she never thought she would like, but she breathes them in now with relish. “What else?”

“I like to read,” she skirts, avoiding the meat of it for as long as she can, strangely reluctant to share that part of herself, even with this girl who seems to see her with no effort at all. “I like to sleep? I used to make collages but--”

“Do you write?” Natasha asks, hitting the nail on the head so perfectly that Wanda can’t help but look over in surprise, letting out a laugh that she can’t keep in.

“How do you do that?” she says in amazement, sitting up in her seat as she starts to merge onto the interstate. 

“Do what?” Natasha replies, but there’s a smirk in those words, like she knows exactly what.

“Like… like _see_ me like that?” It’s funny--amusing--until it’s not, until it’s sobering and a little frightening, like maybe Natasha can see right down to the broken parts of her, see that she’s a lost cause, that she’s never going back into one piece again. Her heart thuds in her ears, a dull, scared beat that drowns out the music, the sounds of all the other cars on the interstate, maybe even Natasha’s voice.

“--shit, I wish I could touch you, it’s killin’ me,” Natasha is saying when she tunes back in, her hand hovering between them before she draws it back to herself. “I just… I see you because you’re worth seeing. And paying attention to. And thinking about. Is that okay?”

It’s not a challenge, it’s not as impatient as it would be probably coming from anyone else. It’s a real question, a gentle one that allows Wanda to answer however she needs to. The roar of her heartbeat quietens then, letting her take slow, deep breaths, to calm down and remember this is the girl who makes her feel safe, not… not someone else.

“Yeah,” she finally says quietly. “It’s okay.”

“I put some Young Summer on my phone,” Natasha says, holding up the MP3 cord and plugging it up. “Wanna listen for awhile?”

Wanda nods with a smile, and when she glances over at Natasha this time, she catches her eyes, green on green, and finds comfort in the growing familiarity of it.

 

They roll the windows down when they get on the interstate, night falling fast around them, the colors fading from the sky as stars show up bright and expansive in their wake. Wanda keeps her right hand firmly on the wheel as she lets the left one hang out of the open window, the air biting and cold on her bare arm, skin used to being covered up and smothered under layers of fabric now exposed, dotted with goosebumps.

She doesn’t realize she’s smiling, helpless and unaware, her hair lifted by the wind, long strands of it drifting up and out the window, blowing outside of the car.

“You’re beautiful,” Natasha says from beside her, sudden and over the wind, over the music. Wanda looks over and finds Natasha watching her like she’s doing something amazing. She shakes her head, her smile softening into something quieter, her fingers curling in toward her palm but she doesn’t pull her arm back in.

Natasha looks back out her own window, a smirk digging at one corner of her mouth. Wanda glances up at her own reflection in the rearview mirror, trying to see what Natasha sees, trying to find beauty in what’s looking back at her. When she smiles, she almost, almost sees it.

 

Portland is a whole other world from Battleground, Washington, and every time Wanda goes, she never wants to come home again. They pay an obscene amount to park in a nearby garage, and Wanda feels an ever-growing anxiety blurring the edges of her medicated calm the closer they get to the venue, to the crowds of people and the line they have to get in.

“A couple of things,” Natasha says about half a block away, drawing them into a doorway and off the street. “If this gets to be too much at any point, just say the word and we’ll go, okay? If somebody makes you uncomfortable, just tell me. If you need anything, I promise I won’t think you’re lame or dramatic or anything like that, just let me know. Alright?”

She ducks her head to make sure she catches Wanda’s gaze, and Wanda can’t do anything but nod when Natasha searches her eyes, gratitude caught in her throat.

“I, um. I have a Xanax in case I…” She glances past Natasha and down the street at the awaiting crowd. Her throat tightens. “I should probably take it. Like, really soon.”

“Sure,” Natasha says with a smile, tipping her head to get Wanda to follow her down the street again. “Looks like they’re letting people in now. Let’s get inside and get you a water. Sam said he’d help us get up along the railing so we won’t just be crushed in the crowd. I don’t want you to have to deal with people on all sides.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” Wanda says softly, touched beyond any ability to convey it. 

“I wanted to. Promise,” Natasha replies, her hands stuffed in her pockets, an unreadable smile on her face that makes Wanda walk a few inches closer, Natasha’s leather jacket brushing against her bare shoulder every few steps. The line is moving along quickly now that the doors are open, and Wanda reaches into her bag and pulls the tickets out, handing them over to Natasha to avoid the interaction at the door.

Natasha hands her a ticket stub once they’re inside, and Wanda grins down at it, the excitement of actually being here settling in. She presses a dramatic kiss to the ticket and tucks it back into her purse, feeling silly but Natasha’s laugh makes it worth it.

They stop and grab a water at the concession stand in the gorgeous Crystal Ballroom, and Wanda takes her pill while Natasha texts back and forth with her friend Sam, radio DJ and Wanda’s new favorite person. 

“Hey, hey!” A voice says suddenly from pretty close by, and Wanda looks up from her bottle of water to see a guy with a cheerful, gorgeous smile waving at them as he weaves through the crowd. “Nat, your hair! Or… no hair? Lack of hair?”

Natasha reaches up to rub her head with a grin, and Wanda remembers vividly at that second just how soft it is. Her hand twitches around the bottle with the need to feel it again.

“Yeah, crazy, right? Just wanted something different. Sam, this is Wanda. Wanda, this is Sam, the guy who got us these tickets and is gonna help us get up to the rail, or so he says.” Natasha has moved the tiniest bit closer to Wanda, their arms nearly touching as Sam comes in and completes their circle, his hands going to his pockets. 

Sam doesn’t try to shake her hand even though Wanda can tell he wants to. He inclines his head at her and smiles, bright and sunny and unphased by her weirdness. Wanda can tell immediately that she likes him.

“We’re actually gonna come around backstage a little and then let you in from the front. It’ll be easier than trying to get through all those people." He holds up two passes from his magic pockets, adopting an amazing radio voice that Wanda immediately recognizes. “Congratulations, Natasha and Wanda! You are the winners of the K103 contest for VIP tickets to the Young Summer concert here at the Crystal Ballroom! How do you feel!?”

“Embarrassed for you,” Natasha says, taking the passes from Sam and passing one to Wanda who follows Natasha’s lead by pulling it over her head. “Where to now, DJ Falcon?”

“Shh, nobody’s s’posed to know about my secret career, man,” Sam stage-whispers, throwing Wanda a wink before he leads them through the crowd, something about him commanding enough respect that people just instinctively part for him.

Backstage turns out to be nothing glamorous, just a lot of large black cases for instruments and random people milling around with similar passes around their necks. Sam leads them to the steps on stage right to the gate separating the stage from the crowd that is already piling in, filling up the relatively small theater. He says a few quiet words to the security guy standing to the furthest end of the gate and the guy goes over and pulls the gate open, ushering Wanda and Natasha through and into the crowd.

“Excuse me, y’all. Excuse me,” Sam says loudly from the other side, nudging people to shift further to the center. “This space between the red tape is for these ladies here. Reserved space. Please move over some. Thaaaank you.”

Wanda ducks her head at the sound of everyone grumbling and rumbling about having to move, side-eyeing the hell out of them for getting special privileges, something Wanda can’t really blame them for. The press of bodies against her back is an immediate trigger, her heart rate rising, adrenaline spiking high before Natasha is maneuvering around her, guiding Wanda against the barrier itself without touching her too much somehow. The touch of dozens of bodies is reduced to one, just a slight one along her back. Natasha’s arms come down on either side of her on the barrier, essentially locking Wanda in and blocking anyone else from touching her.

“This okay?” comes Natasha’s low voice against her ear. Wanda feels the pill kicking in, her heart slowing down a little, some of the tension leaving her body. She lets out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding in, not really able to turn around and look at Natasha, but she smiles down at Natasha’s small but strong hands on the metal barrier, at her firm arms that are keeping anybody else from invading her personal space.

She nods, safe now with no one but bored security guards to see her. She smiles so hard her face hurts.

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s good.”

 

When Young Summer comes onstage, Wanda presses against the railing, her breasts above the bar that is smashing into her ribs, any uncomfortable circumstances forgotten in the face of the music starting up. It’s strange, to be surrounded by people hearing this music, to share what is usually such a private thing with strangers, but being completely inundated with the music from all sides, being drowned in sound until it’s a sensation on her skin, it’s beautiful. It’s worth it. It’s euphoria.

She lifts her arms, bare and ruined, closes her eyes, and starts to dance in the safety of Natasha’s arms.

 

_Wake up one day, will you wait on me? Stay close by when I’m hard to keep?_

She sings along so loudly she goes hoarse halfway through the set, moving against Natasha who she can tell is struggling to keep people from crowding them, from shoving Natasha into Wanda and crushing them both into the barrier. But she can also tell that Natasha is no stranger to concerts, to rough crowds, to holding her own in them. She relaxes back into her, into the softness of her breasts against her back, comforted by the smell of Natasha all around here in all these new surroundings, by the sound of her breath, steady and constant, against her ear.

 

“This is my favorite song!” she says loudly over her shoulder when “Waves That Rolled You Under” starts up, not really able to say what the song means to her, how much it struck her when she first heard it, about the way she had cried to herself in the library in a strange mix of feeling so alone and feeling understood, all at once.

Tears stream unnoticed down her face as she sings along, her hands clutching the metal bar in front of her, a painful, cathartic sort of release pouring out of her with each word, each note being played. She smiles through it, blissful in the middle of it all, grateful for the medicine flowing through her veins, for the girl at her back, for the girl onstage, and even for every single person around her, loving the music just as much as she is.

It’s immediately a night she will never, ever forget.

 

They take their time leaving, not trying to beat the crowds filing out of the doors at the back of the theater but shuffling along at the very back of it instead. Wanda is quiet, in her own head as they make their way out, and she’s grateful that Natasha lets her, gives her space. 

The street is so quiet by comparison that Wanda is just now realizing how much her ears are ringing, how relaxed and drained she feels. She laughs, just a huff of sound that makes her feel silly, but Natasha echoes it, a smile stretching wide across her face.

“Did you have fun?” she asks, her face open, like Wanda could say whatever she wanted to and Natasha would be receptive to it.

“It was…” she trails off, her eyes wide as she tries to find the words. She wraps her arms around herself, rubbing the bare, already chilly skin. “It was one of the best experiences of my life. I just… I needed that. More than I can explain. And more than I knew.”

“Good.” Natasha looks genuinely pleased as she tugs off her leather jacket and moves behind Wanda, draping her jacket over Wanda’s naked shoulders and not letting go until Wanda holds onto the lapels herself, pulling it around herself and looking over at Natasha, her face soft with amazement.

“Thank you,” she says quietly, meeting those eyes head-on, needing to do it to convey how much she really means it. “Seriously. For… for everything. For doing this for me. For… for watching out for me at the show. For being my friend.”

“You don’t have to thank me for that one, alright? I couldn’t help being your friend. You’re too amazing not to.” They step into the parking garage, the scuff of Wanda’s sneakers and the thud of Natasha’s boots echoing around the quiet space. Natasha’s arm bumps into hers again, but this time it lingers for a second, and Wanda lets it.

“Well, I don’t know about--”

She jumps as the sound of a man shouting from across the parking garage rings loud in the cool night air, bouncing off all the surfaces in the garage. She stops breathing, stops walking, her knees locking as she braces for… for something, for anything, her hand sliding down into her pocket on automatic to grab her knife. She presses the release and the familiar snick of the blade snapping out calms her a bit, steels her. Her eyes dart around the lot, unblinking as she searches for him. For Him.

“--okay? Hey, Wanda. Hey, look at me. Can you hear me?”

Wanda finally blinks, coming back into herself with a quick inhale of breath. She glances over at Natasha, her eyes huge, pupils dilated, the knife clutched in her hand, ready to use.

“It’s okay,” Natasha says, low and calm, standing closer than Wanda is comfortable with right now. “It was just some drunk guy with his friends. He was laughing, he wasn’t angry. Okay? It’s alright. You’re alright.”

“I’m alright,” Wanda echoes for lack of anything else to do, not letting the words sink in, not believing them for a second. An SUV drives by then, the windows down, people laughing from inside the car as they pass. It jolts Wanda out of it, her whole body relaxing when she realizes that Natasha was telling the truth.

It’s okay.

She closes the knife with a single, practiced move of her hand, tucking it back in her pocket and clearing her throat as she lowers her eyes to her feet, embarrassed.

“Sorry,” she mumbles, tucking her hair behind one ear and all but cowering under the cover of Natasha’s jacket. “That was… he just surprised me, I guess.”

“It’s understandable. He was being a loud jackass. It’s cool,” Natasha replies, still speaking slow and soothing, like Wanda is a loaded gun herself. Wanda closes her eyes, pulling the jacket closed around her completely, letting out a heavy sigh.

“Sorry,” she says again, feeling absolutely exhausted suddenly, every single movement and emotion and second of the night catching up to her until she thinks she could curl up right where she’s standing and sleep for twelve hours. “I’m… we can go. C’mon, let’s…”

She pulls the keys out of her bag and walks quickly to the car, even the clunk of Natasha’s boots hurrying along behind her sounding worried.

“I can drive,” Natasha says when they reach the car, her hand held out for the keys, a small, sympathetic smile on her face. “I know that took a lot out of you tonight. I can get us home. Safe, even.”

Wanda looks down at the keys as she thinks it over, only hesitating because of Peter and his obsession with the car. She hands Natasha the keys and walks around to the passenger side, sighing as soon as she’s settled into the seat, sinking down and closing her eyes.

“I owe you big time,” she mumbles as Natasha starts the car, dragging the jacket from around her shoulders and draping it over her body like a blanket to snuggle under.

“Get some rest,” comes Natasha’s reply, and it’s the last thing Wanda hears before she’s slipping under, sleep finding her immediately.

 

“We’re baaaack,” Natasha says against her ear as Wanda stirs awake. She opens her eyes and finds that they’re indeed in the Maximoffs’ driveway, the street dark and quiet except the few streetlights dotting along the sidewalks. Wanda finally looks over at Natasha who is watching her in the dark of the car, quiet and patient.

Wanda really doesn’t deserve her.

“Thanks,” she says, sitting up with a yawn as she unbuckles her seatbelt and opens the door, letting in the cool, damp night air. “I don’t think I could’ve driven home.”

“I don’t really get to drive much anymore. I enjoyed it.” She hands her the keys back once they’re out of the car, both of them hovering awkwardly, at once too close to each other and not close enough.

Natasha reaches out and tugs on the sleeve of her own leather jacket that Wanda has around her shoulders again, her smile small, like it’s her secret.

“Hold onto this, if you want,” she says, green eyes flicking up to Wanda’s. “Just for a little while.”

She’s wearing a Violent Femmes t-shirt covered in holes like it went on tour for all of the 80s and the 90s, holes dotting along the worn collar and across the faces of the band on the front. Wanda notices for the first time how big Natasha’s breasts are, soft and full under the ancient t-shirt. She wonders what kind of bra Natasha wears, what color it is.

She lifts her eyes once she realizes she’s been staring, blinking big and guilty at Natasha who is smirking at her, an eyebrow raised as she folds her arms under her chest, her breasts lifting up even higher.

“Love the Violent Femmes,” Natasha says, grinning.

“Totally,” Wanda replies, her face hot. “So, um. Thank you. Again. This was… unforgettable.”

“It was,” Natasha agrees, swaying a little closer before moving away again, the inches between them almost painful because Wanda doesn’t know if she wants to back up or move in so, so much closer. “And it was my pleasure. I just wanted you to have a good time. You seemed like you needed it, maybe.”

Another warm curl of arousal stirs in her, licking low in her guts, reminding her of what else she hasn’t had in a long time, maybe ever. It’s a thought so unbidden, so foreign to her that she shakes her head a little, trying to dispel it.

“No?” Natasha smiles, tugging on the sleeve of the jacket again, pulling Wanda just a little bit closer.

“No,” Wanda echoes, lost in that look on her face, in the way Natasha keeps looking at her mouth. “I mean… I mean _yes_. Yes, I did need it. Sorry, it’s late. I’m…”

She shakes her head again, smiling shyly down at the jacket she’s all but hugging.

“Text me tomorrow?” she manages.

“You bet,” Natasha says, walking backwards toward her house, like she can’t manage to look away from Wanda. “Night, doll.”

“Night,” Wanda all but whispers, caught on the word, on what Natasha’s face had looked like as she said it. She imagines suddenly if she were braver, if she wasn’t so fucked up, what she would do right now. She’d call after Natasha to wait, she’d run toward her and catch her, wrap her arms around her neck just like girls do to boys in movies and kiss her like she’d been thinking about it for days, ever since she first met her, like there’s nothing more in the world she wants to do, and she’d--

“Fuck,” Natasha says loud enough for Wanda to hear her from the driveway. Wanda frowns and takes a few steps forward, squinting to see Natasha in the darkness of her front porch.

“What’s going on?” she asks, dread slicing through her at the thought of Ana Maximoff.

“Stalin locked me out,” Natasha replies, stomping down the steps and around the yard to the tree with the ladder still nailed into it. “Let’s see if she locked the window, too.”

Wanda can only watch as Natasha climbs the tree and moves out onto the widest branch toward a window on the second story, glancing worriedly at the front porch every few seconds like she expects Ana to appear like a ghost, face distorted with fury at Wanda’s very existence and determined to destroy her.

“Nat?” she calls up softly, nervous down here on the ground where she can’t do anything, can’t help and definitely can’t walk away.

Natasha is climbing back down before Wanda knows it, jumping down the last few feet and walking over to Wanda again, a little out of breath and tense with anger.

“Guess I’m sleeping outside,” she all but snaps, turning to shoot a glare and a firm middle finger at the house. “God, I hate her.”

“No, you’re not. You’re coming with me. I’m not letting you sleep out here. You’ll freeze to death. C’mon.” If she touched people, this would definitely be when she reached out for Natasha. But the defunct Wanda just turns and starts toward her own house, hoping Natasha will just follow her.

The house is mostly dark when they step inside, only a light at the top of the stairs on so Wanda can see on the way up. They’re silent as they make their way to her room, and Wanda locks the door behind them when they get inside.

“I can sleep on the couch,” Natasha says as Wanda turns on the lamp by her bed. Natasha is trembling with what Wanda can tell is pure, helpless fury, her hands pinching fitfully at her bare arms in some kind of strange self-punishment. “Sorry about this. I didn’t think she’d do this. Didn’t think she’d be smart enough to lock my window, too.”

“You’re staying in here. My bed is plenty big enough for both of us. Let me get you some sleep pants.” She’s surprisingly calm in the face of Natasha’s anger, feeling in control and like she has to be the one to make this better, something she hasn’t felt equipped to do in a long time. She feels the ghost of who she used to be as she digs through her drawers for a pair of pajama bottoms, reminded of the girl who used to be responsible and steady and undaunted by most everything life threw at her.

It’s nice, she decides. To remember.

When she turns back around, Natasha is stripped down to black panties and her t-shirt that gets discarded for the white ribbed tank underneath, her black bra visible through the thin fabric.

_Black. She’s wearing a black bra._

Wanda clutches the soft pants in her hands and thinks maybe she’s not as in control of anything as she thought only a few seconds ago.

“H-Here,” she manages, holding out the pants and handing them to Natasha over her bed.

“Thanks,” Natasha says, unfolding the pants and pulling them up her body, over the amazing curves of her hips, and Wanda smiles a little to herself when she realizes they fit her perfectly, that they wear the same size. Wanda stays where she is, not blinking as Natasha unhooks her bra under the tanktop, working it off and tossing it on the chair with the rest of her clothes.

Her nipples are hard, outlined clearly through the shirt, and Wanda can’t seem to look away.

“Do you sleep in your clothes?” Natasha asks, her tone teasing and pulling Wanda out of her thoughts.

“Hmm?” She looks up at Natasha’s face, guilt all over her own from being caught staring at Natasha’s breasts for the second time in less than half an hour. “Oh, no. I’ll… I’m gonna go… get ready for bed. I’ll…”

She grabs a jersey sleep dress from her open dresser drawer, refusing to think about the fact that she never wears it, that she’s only doing this because Natasha’s here, because maybe Natasha might like how she looks in it.

She locks herself in the bathroom and stares at her wide-eyed, startled expression in the mirror, at her flushed cheeks.

“Idiot,” she says.

She changes quickly, adjusting her breasts in the cups on the soft, dusty purple dress, smoothing it down where it hits high on her thighs. She brushes her hair quickly, working out the knots from the wind and from dancing, washing her face clean of the sweat she’d worked up at the show. She realizes that her heart is pounding as she dries her face, her pupils blown wide when she stares at her reflection again.

Something akin to fear is racing through her veins, making her heart race, but it’s not that, not exactly. She turns the light off and pads barefoot into the now dark hallway, pausing in front of her door, fingers brushing the doorknob.

She’s not afraid of Natasha. Just afraid of what Natasha makes her feel.

She grips the knob and turns it, stepping into her room as casually as she can, refusing to look up at Natasha when she gets her first look at Wanda in the dress she’s now feeling a little silly in.

“Jesus Christ,” Natasha says, soft but clear. “Look at you.”

“I put lotion on the scars,” Wanda tells her, still not looking up as she sits down on the bed, on her side. She looks at her left arm, frowning at the crisscrosses of scars running up and down the length of it, the perpetual ring of bone bruises and scars from the cuffs around her wrists. “The doctor said they should fade eventually. That I’ll barely be able to see them.”

“I wasn’t talking about the scars,” Natasha replies as she settles down on the other side of the bed, all the lights out but the lamp on Wanda’s side. Wanda manages to glance up at her and finds that Natasha’s eyes are on her face, her mouth curved in a knowing smile at Wanda’s diversion tactic.

“Thanks,” she all but whispers, finally lowering her arms from what she knows is her ample cleavage, from the swells of her breasts that look magnificent in this silly little nightgown from Target; it was the reason she bought it in the first place. 

“Can I look at them?”

Wanda’s eyes widen as they shoot back up at Natasha, but she relaxes when she realizes that Natasha is looking at the scars now, not her breasts.

She doesn’t know which one she’d be more comfortable with showing her, to be honest.

“Yeah,” she says because there’s nothing else to say, holding her arms out in the low light as Natasha leans closer to see. She turns her arms this way and that, showing her how they go all the way up. “There are some on my legs, but not as many. Some on my stomach, my… my breasts. They’re faint, those ones. He liked knives, especially when he got bored or I was bad.”

This is more than she’s even said to her therapist in nearly a year, something she only realizes after she’s said it. She sighs, unable to take it back now. So she keeps talking.

“Sometimes,” she starts, leaning back against the headboard to ground herself as she rubs her right wrist, “I can still feel the cuffs. You know? Like, I can be sitting in class and I feel like I can’t move all of a sudden, like if I pulled on my arms, they wouldn’t move because I’m… I’m there still, cuffed to the bed. Sometimes they still hurt like they did back there. They were always raw and bleeding from pulling. That’s why there are scars. I couldn’t stop trying to escape. I just… I just couldn’t.”

“That’s why you’re here right now,” Natasha replies, now sitting right across from her, her legs folded up, only inches away and staring straight at her. “That’s the only reason. Because you fought like hell. Right?”

“Probably,” Wanda says quietly, drawing her legs up and wrapping her arms around them, hugging them to her chest. She looks away, eyes catching on the window facing the Romanoffs’ house. “That’s the window he crawled in. Right there. He used to go up into the kids’ treehouse and watch me. I never… I mean, who thinks to look for things like that, you know? I never… I never saw him. But the tree’s right between our houses, and there was a branch that came out to my window. I woke up to him standing over me, hand over my mouth. Telling me not to fucking move or he’d kill my family and leave me alive. I don’t know if anything could’ve shut me up better than that.”

She’s back there, that night, the green in her eyes given way to mostly black, her heart drumming loud in her ears.

“It was… some kind of old bomb shelter? He had me in the trunk on the way, and I never left until I got away, but I was so… I don’t remember. Not exactly. But he had it all ready. Everything set up. It was… everyday was the same. He raped me in the morning, then breakfast, then he would leave for a few hours. Then he’d wash me. Brush my hair. Then he’d… he called it playtime. He’d just touch me, say things to me while he did. It was…”

She licks her lips, shaking her head, tears standing in haunted eyes.

“It was the worst part of all. I couldn’t turn his voice off. I can’t forget his voice. For awhile I really thought I’d led him to me. That I had orchestrated the whole thing. I didn’t fight him for awhile. Not as much. He’d rape me again and feed me dinner. He always fed me. Used spoons sometimes, but mostly his fingers. Meat. He always fed me meat. Fed me until I would cry. Beg him to stop. I always threw up. Always. I think he did it so that I would make him mad, make it okay when he used the knife on me. He liked to reopen old cuts that were healing, which is why the scars are so bad.”

She falls quiet, nails digging into her thighs, blinking a few times as tears slip down her cheeks.

“One day, I was just pulling on the cuffs because I was bored. Just kept pulling and pulling. I had to pee, and I usually tried to wait for him, for the bedpan, but I had to go bad. I pulled really hard and the rail the cuffs were looped around on the bed broke. Just broke right off from the rest of the headboard. I… I could move my hands. For the first time in almost two months, I could… I could move my fucking arms.”

She finally looks at Natasha, her eyes wide with simple amazement. She gives a laugh.

“I lost it. Just started crying. I was so happy. I was so weak. My muscles… I could barely walk after I untied my legs. I crawled up the stairs to the door but it was locked from the outside. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t… I couldn’t just go back to the bed. Couldn’t stay. So I hid. Waited for him. He couldn’t lock the door when he was down there with me, only when he left. So I waited. It felt like days. I peed all over myself, crouched in a corner, next to cans and cans of food. It… it had to be a bomb shelter. Had to.

“He finally came. Had his hands full of plates of food, a bottle of water. He was walking down the stairs really carefully with it all. So I ran at him and pushed him as hard as I could. He fell down the rest of the stairs and I just ran up them, pushed the door as hard as I could, and it opened. I ran. I-I… I just ran as fast as I could. As hard as I could. I could hear him yelling. I could hear him chasing me.”

She’s shaking now, can feel the cold air on her bleeding skin, can smell the piss on her legs, can feel the terror in every bone in her body.

“I ran as f-far as I could. It was this big open field, and I ran until I found a road and just kept running. My hands were still cuffed together. The doctor afterwards said I weighed 99 pounds. Ninety-nine pounds. I’d lost a lot of muscle mass. But I ran for two miles. An old man found me. A Vietnam vet. He said I was running naked down the road and kept falling. My knees were bleeding, the bottoms of my feet. He picked me up and put me in his car and I was so scared that I fainted. I thought he was taking me back… back to him. 

“I woke up in the hospital. I’d been asleep for five days. Apparently, I had been pregnant at some point, but the stress I was under… I’d lost it. Which is a relief, for a lot of reasons. They found my mom and dad, they were… their stress was the worst part. Their emotions? I just… I was just shut down, and they were hysterical. It was exhausting. It still feels like that, like they’re just seconds away from crying when they see me, most of the time. It’s easier if less people know the whole story. If I just spend most of the time alone. I can’t… I can’t handle other people’s emotions very well. Not when I’m still trying to find all my own.”

Natasha is dangerously close now, her cheeks wet with tears, her eyes glimmering with them. Her hands are in the couple of inches between them, her fingers almost touching Wanda’s toes.

“Thank you,” she says finally, her voice thick, low like she’s restraining it. “For telling me.”

It’s started to rain at some point, falling steady and soothing against the roof, against the wide bay window. She nods in reply, all she can offer as she pulls herself back together, forces her mind into the present, into tonight where she’s safe and here with Natasha.

“I’m tired,” she whispers.

“Let’s sleep,” Natasha replies, wiping her eyes with a hard swipe of her hand before she’s moving back to the other side of the bed, pushing the covers back and slipping under them. Wanda plugs in her phone and turns out the light, watching the windows for a few seconds each, checking them for movement, for shadows.

She pulls the blankets up to her chin once she’s under them, turning to face Natasha instead of away from her, not through with reminding herself that Natasha’s here, that her presence makes Wanda feel looked-after, like maybe she’ll sleep tonight without a pill.

Natasha watches her in the dark as the rain falls outside, and Wanda can do nothing but watch her right back, but stay quiet as Natasha absorbs the whole story still and inevitably struggles with not saying anything else about it, at least right now.

“I want to hold you so much right now,” Natasha whispers. Her hand twitches on the pillow like she really means it, like it’s killing her not to be touching Wanda. She wishes she could give that to her, give the comfort to herself, but she can’t. She wants to tell Natasha that she’s working on it, that this--what she has with Natasha--is such a big step, is healing her more and faster than anything has so far.

It sounds like a lie, a platitude maybe, and she can’t bring herself to say it.

“I can feel it,” she says instead, just barely heard over the rain. She falls asleep under Natasha’s quiet gaze, enveloped in this new feeling of _safe._


	5. Chapter 5

Natasha is gone by the time she wakes up.

Her alarm hasn’t gone off yet, the light coming from outside still more blue than the pinks and oranges of dawn, but the place next to her is empty. Wanda stares at it for a long moment, still slow with sleep, and when she reaches over to run her hand over the place Natasha had been, she can still feel the barest hint of warmth there.

She wonders if she’s home already, if she’s being screamed at by her mom while the rest of the neighborhood sleeps or gets ready for work in peace. If she were braver, she’d go over there, try and stand up for Natasha. Explain to Ana that she was out because of her, that she did it for Wanda, not for herself. That she’s woken Wanda up from a despair that she thought was just her life now. That she’s an amazing person who Ana doesn’t see at all.

She stays in bed instead, wallowing in her insecurities and her absolute failure as a friend, her hand staying on Natasha’s side of the bed until it gets cold and the sun has risen and her alarm goes off on her nightstand.

School is more of a blur than usual, the emotional drain of the night before pulling her under more than any lack of sleep ever could. She walks home same as every day, slowing down when she passes the Romanoff house. Ana’s car is there in the driveway but all the windows covered, curtains and shades blocking any view inside.

She doesn’t know how long she stands there, waiting for any movement, even for Ana’s angry face peeking from behind the dark blue curtains in the livingroom. She stirs and continues on home, hands tucked into Natasha’s leather jacket that she’d worn all day, even during classes.

She checks over the mailbox and around the doormat, eyes drifting over the doorframe and the windows, looking for a note from Nat, for any sign that she’d been here, that she’s trying to communicate.

Nothing.

She pulls out her phone again and checks it for probably the hundredth time today, staring at the unanswered, neutral texts she’d sent to Natasha.

_just checking in and making sure you got home okay. hope you had a good day <3_

She lets herself into the quiet house and stands in the foyer, watching her phone for any response. Her heart rate kicks up when she sees a response being typed, and she doesn’t move a single muscle as she waits for it to come through.

_Natasha is grounded and I have taken her phone so stop trying to contact her unless you are trying to get her into even more trouble._

“Asshole,” Wanda whispers under her breath, hand tightening up around her phone before she turns it off again and shoves it into her pocket. She marches into the house and looks around, nervous energy making her fingers twitch with the need to do _something_

_Don’t let that woman take her away from you._

She drops her bag onto the table and digs around until she finds her journal and a pen, her hair falling around her face as she scratches a note onto one of the blank pages.

_N-_

_I know you’re grounded and that she took your phone. I’ll wait it out if I have to, but I just want to make sure you’re okay. You can stick a reply on the bottom step leading up the tree. I’ll check it every day. I’ll talk to you as soon as possible._

_Wanda_

She folds the paper up and hurries back outside, squinting in the late afternoon sunlight as she scouts out a spot for the note. She ends up tucking it underneath a stone angel statue on the corner of the Romanoffs’ front porch, moving as quietly as possible just in case Ana is listening for her.

She goes back home and finally lets out the breath she’d been holding since she crossed over to the Romanoffs’ property, her heart pounding in her ears. She trudges up the stairs and goes immediately to her side window, the one that overlooks the tree, staring down at the wooden planks that make up the ladder to the treehouse that’s no longer there, like she can will a response from Natasha if she just wants it bad enough.

 

The next day is Saturday and it’s raining, but Wanda ventures out of the house anyway. She walks to the library and holes up in the poetry section, doing some covert searches on her phone that have her leaving with five books of poetry written by women who love other women.

She has her hood up over her head as she shuffles home, her shoelaces dragging the ground, soggy and brown. She looks first at the angel statue on Natasha’s porch, her eyes lighting up when she sees that her note is gone.

She practically runs to the tree, smiling helplessly as she nears it. The leaves protect her from the rain as she runs her hand over the trunk and then the bottom step, one that is completely void of any secret notes from any brave girls.

The smile leaves her face as fast as it had come, her hand falling away from the tree as she tips her head up to look at Natasha’s shuttered window.

_Maybe,_ she thinks, _she’s writing a reply right now._

She locks her bedroom door, double checks the ones on her windows, and strips down to her sky blue panties, brushing out her hair until it’s falling long and soft over her nipples and down to the small of her back. She moves her nest from the bay window to the floor, leaning back against it as she opens the first book, her notebook and pen waiting to write down any beautiful words she finds.

Eileen Myles says:

_I think writing_  
_is desire_  
 _not a form_  
 _of it_

And Marilyn Hacker says:

_You did say, need me less and I’ll want you more._  
_I’m still shellshocked at needing anyone,_  
 _used to being used to it on my own._  
 _It won’t be me out on the tiles till four-_  
 _thirty, while you’re in bed, willing the door_  
 _open with your need. You wanted her then,_  
 _more. Because you need to, I woke alone_  
 _in what’s not yet our room, strewn, though, with your_  
 _guitar, shoes, notebook, socks, trousers enjambed_  
 _with mine. Half the world was sleeping it off_  
 _in every other bed under my roof._  
 _I wish I had a roof over my bed_  
 _to pull down on my head when I feel damned_  
 _by wanting you so much it looks like need._

And Mary Oliver says:

_You do not have to be good._  
_You do not have to walk on your knees_  
 _for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting._  
 _You only have to let the soft animal of your body_  
 _love what it loves._  
 _Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine._  
 _Meanwhile the world goes on._

She writes and writes until her hand hurts and her nipples ache from still unfamiliar desire and from the shiver of the cold afternoon outside. She slides a hand into her panties and runs her middle finger over her cunt, finding it slick and warm. She pulls it out and brings it close to her face to stare at, at the clear honey shining wet on the pad of her finger, caught in the scoop of her long fingernail.

She pushes her finger into her mouth, over her tongue, hollowing out her cheeks to suck the slick off, tasting the vague earth-ocean of it and wondering at it, at the women who want other women, who crave this taste of theirs, who want to put their mouths between girls’ legs and suck on that flavor, on the pink that gives it up. At women who would look at her right now and find her beautiful, want to fuck her, suck on her tits and put their hand down her panties and their fingers inside of her and want to make her come. At women who would want to kiss her mouth, who would want to know what she tastes like all over.

She thinks about Natasha, wonders if Natasha wants any of those things from her. With her.

Wanda stands up on heavy legs and walks naked to the window again, her breasts bare and firm as she leans down to squint at the tree in the failing light, not seeing any bright flash of white paper. It turns her stomach with worry, with something akin to rejection.

She takes two Ambien and falls asleep at 8:30, wearing damp panties, a leather jacket that doesn’t belong to her, and clutching a switchblade under her pillow.

 

The weekend passes in silence, in a medicated blur. She does her homework, paints her toenails blood red, and washes her sheets, sleeping naked beneath them, soft skin against clean cotton. She stares at her naked body in the mirror on the back of the bathroom door, forcing herself to look at the scars, at the provenance of her trauma: the scars around her rosy nipples, her formerly beautiful breasts, the small softness of her belly just above her cunt where he’d carved one word: _mine_.

“Not anymore,” she whispers to her reflection, her voice trembling as her hands slide down to hide the word.

 

It’s sunny when she walks home from school Monday, and she tips her face up and lets it hit her full-on, warming her cheeks and burning bright spots on the back of her eyelids. She checks her phone as compulsively as she has for the last several days, disappointed all over again when she sees no notifications.

A loud noise from up ahead on the sidewalk startles her, makes her shove the phone back in her pocket and reach for the knife clipped to the back of her jeans out of pure instinct before she processes the sound; laughter - bright, happy, female.

She lets out the breath she’d been holding and hides her hands under her sleeves, ashamed of being so fucking trigger happy every time she gets scared. She hurries along, eager to get home now that she can’t stop berating herself under her breath, pinching hard at the insides of her wrists as she rushes down the sidewalk.

She’s aware of the voices again before she sees them, one familiar and one the owner of the laugh from earlier. She stops where she is, letting her eyes focus on the two bodies walking along several yards ahead.

Natasha.

Natasha and another girl, one with copper hair and freckles and a smile brighter than the sun, aimed at Natasha who is watching the girl with her bottom lip caught between her teeth, every single thing about them reading as flirtatious, teasing, completely unaware of the rest of the world.

Of Wanda.

A hurt sound leaves her throat before she can stop it, her eyes wide as she watches them. She can’t look away, can’t seem to move, can only watch as Natasha reaches up to tug on a long strand of the girl’s hair before she bumps their shoulders together and says something to her, close and intimate that makes the girl laugh again but it’s a quieter sound this time, and Wanda swears, she swears they’re going to--

She breaks into a run, humiliated tears burning in her eyes as she rushes toward them and then past them, her arm brushing Natasha’s the slightest bit but it’s enough for her to gasp, to fold her arms around herself and curl in tighter.

“What the hell--Wanda? Wanda!” Natasha’s voice sounds far away, like they’re in a tunnel, and it gets drowned out quickly by the sound of blood rushing in her ears. “Wanda, wait! Are you okay?!”

Wanda stumbles when she runs up the steps, her knee slamming hard on the edge of one of them, ripping her jeans and tearing into the exposed skin. She shoves herself back up and plunges toward the front door, her hands shaking as she shoves her key in and opens the door.

She doesn’t look back, doesn’t react to Natasha’s rapidly approaching footsteps, doesn’t turn to see the confusion on the other girl’s face because of the the psycho who interrupted her almost-kiss, doesn’t do anything but shut and lock the door behind her and run upstairs, seeking the safety of her bed.

She slams the bedroom door after her, throwing her bag on the ground and kicking her shoes off, getting under the covers just in time for Natasha to start knocking on the door downstairs, ringing the doorbell when she doesn’t get an answer.

Everything is muffled under the blankets, the air close and stuffy, but she can still hear Natasha downstairs, can almost hear her voice as she knocks on the front door.

“Go away!” she finally yells, too far away to be heard but it feels good, dissipates some of the rage she’s feeling, some of the hurt that is so vivid, so unexpected that she can’t push it away fast enough, has to just close her eyes and let it wash over her, pulling her under as she closes her eyes and tries so hard to block the world out.

 

“Honey?”

The knock on her bedroom door startles her awake, and it’s dark in her room when she emerges from the covers, blinking blearily as she tries to remember what day it is, if it’s time to go to school, if--

“Wanda?”

The lamp by her bed comes on, flooding the room with light and chasing the shadows out. Her mom is there like magic, standing beside the bed and watching her with a worried frown.

“What?” she says irritably, shoving the blankets off and gathering all her hair up to throw it across her pillow.

“You okay?” Magda asks, closing the door and sitting down beside Wanda on the bed, watching her with a quiet concern that has Wanda clamming up, turning over so she’s facing the wall instead of her mom.

“I’m fine,” she replies, drawing her legs up closer to her stomach, her body in a tight curl, eyes squeezing shut like maybe if she can’t see her mom, she’ll just go away.

“Natasha was at the front door when I got home,” Magda says after a long moment, and it’s a tone Wanda has come to associate with being touched, being petted, comforted. She tenses, waiting for it, and when it doesn’t come she doesn’t know if she’s relieved or disappointed. “She seemed upset. Said you were crying and wouldn’t talk to her.”

“So?” she snaps, tears threatening behind her closed eyes. She curls her hands together and nuzzles down against them, her hair falling over her cheek and hopefully hiding her face a little. “I don’t have to talk to anybody just because they want me to. I don’t have to do anything I’m not comfortable with.”

“I know that,” Magda says, patient and slow like she’s choosing her words carefully. Wanda shifts away from her a little more. “I just… I didn’t think that talking to Natasha would make you uncomfortable. Did she do something? Did she say something that--”

“What does it matter?! It’s personal, Mom. It’s… it’s--”

“Complicated?” Magda supplies, and that tone sounds like a smile. Wanda turns to look back at her and finds the smile she heard, her cheeks heating up just from the look, from the feeling of being caught in something. She looks away again and grabs at her blankets, pulling them back up over her body, all the way up to her chin.

“I don’t want to talk about this,” she says finally, her vision blurring with tears that she can’t keep away.

“You can tell me anything,” Magda says, whisper-soft. “Honey, you can tell me absolutely anything. I will not judge you. I won’t think any less of you.”

Wanda takes a deep breath, the temptation of a confession too much, too easy to give into when she’s feeling so lost.

“I saw Natasha with a girl when I was walking home,” she says in a rush after a pause that goes on probably too long. Wanda waits on her mom’s reaction, and she turns to face her when she doesn’t get one, looking up at her with her eyebrows raised.

Magda blinks, tilting her head to one side, and raises an eyebrow right back at her.

“And?” she prompts. “What were they doing?”

“Just…” She shifts on the bed, grabbing a strand of her hair and running a finger along the split ends of it. “Just walking home. Together.”

“I see,” Magda says on an exhale, like she actually gets it or something. Wanda frowns harder somehow, wrapping the strand of hair around her finger and letting it go, watching it unspiral before doing it again. “And it upset you? To see them walking together?”

“Because I’m a fucking idiot,” Wanda says angrily, dropping her hair and flopping over onto her back, staring up at the ceiling. “Because I’m an unbalanced fuck-up. I wouldn’t want to be my friend either.”

“What makes you think she doesn’t want to be your friend? Didn’t you guys go to a concert the other night? You said you had an amazing time.” Magda does reach for her then, running her fingers through the long falls of Wanda’s hair draped over the pillow, idly braiding them and petting them out of pure habit, like she forgot that her daughter is a basketcase who can’t be touched. Wanda doesn’t have the heart to remind her.

“She’s grounded,” she tells her, tears slipping from her eyes and racing down the sides of her face, dampening her hair and the pillow beneath. “And I left her a note to write me back so we could at least talk that way. And the note was gone when I looked again and she hasn’t replied. She hasn’t tried to talk to me at all. Not all weekend. And then I saw her with that _girl_.”

“Mm,” Magda says. Another smile-sound. Wanda decidedly avoids looking at her, staying still enough so her mom doesn’t stop petting her hair, but she frowns as hard as she can. “Well, it’s good, isn’t it? That she’s made friends?”

“ _I’m_ her friend!” Wanda exclaims, eyes flying to her mom so she can glare at her.

“Obviously, kid,” Magda laughs, giving her hair a gentle tug. “But you don’t go to school with her. It’s gotta be hard to go to a school and not know anybody. Not have a single friend--”

“It _is_ hard,” she interrupts, sounding more hurt than she means to.

“You can’t be her only friend, baby,” Magda says softly with a sigh, leaning over like she wants Wanda to look at her.

“You didn’t see them together,” Wanda manages, wishing immediately that she hadn’t said it. Her face flushes, shyness overtaking her so much that she has to close her eyes again. She covers them by resting her arm across them, fingers trembling just as much as her chin is.

Magda stays quiet, her fingers moving closer and closer to Wanda’s scalp, too close. She tenses, and her mom’s hand pulls away.

“Did you go to the library?” she asks, the question throwing Wanda off enough that she looks over at her, sure the surprise shows on her face.

“Uh. Yeah?” She glances over at the books stacked on her nightstand, not thinking much of it until her eyes catch on one particularly damning title: _Arc of Love: An Anthology of Lesbian Love Poems._

She turns slowly to look at her mom, her eyes wide with guilt, the heat on her face spreading all the way down to her chest.

“Um. Um, I… I just--”

“Talk to her,” Magda says, leaning down to press a kiss to Wanda’s forehead, smoothing her hair back and tucking it behind her ear before she stands up again, heading for the door. “Just pizza for dinner. Got your weird pineapple and black olive.”

“Put it in the fridge,” Wanda says in a daze, her heart thumping marathon-hard in her chest. She watches her mom nod and walk out of the room, and it’s only when the door is nearly closed that she finds her voice again, the words rushing out before it’s too late. “Thanks, Mom.”

Magda meets her eyes and gives her a smile that Wanda feels too young to understand, but the love in it makes the tears that had just receded come back full force.

“Any time, hon.”

She sighs when the door closes again, throwing the library books a look of betrayal before she starts to strip under the covers, tossing the knife on the bedside table and pulling her ruined jeans and sweater off, hissing when her jeans pull at the dried blood on her knee.

She tucks her phone under her pillow and reaches over to turn the light off again, falling into a darkness that doesn’t bring sleep again for a long time.

 

When her phone vibrating under the pillow wakes her up, it’s truly dark, the rest of the house quiet. She reaches for it before she’s even fully awake, one thought driving her:

_It’s Natasha._

The caller ID confirms it, and she’s hitting accept before she can register what she’s doing, before she even gives herself a choice to make.

“Hello?”

The quiet on the other end is one of surprise, of recovering. She waits it out, wondering if maybe it’s Ana, if she’s setting Wanda up to say something to get Natasha in trouble.

“It’s me,” comes Natasha’s voice, so nervous and unlike her that Wanda can’t help but smile a little.

“I saw,” she replies, sarcastic but gentle.

“I found my phone earlier when she had her prayer group over. It was completely dead, so I had to let it charge and make sure she was asleep. If I hang up, it’s because she came in, okay?”

Wanda turns over on her back and kicks the blankets off again, staring up at the grey-white of the ceiling.

“Okay,” is all she can think to say.

The silence that settles between them is almost unbearable, awkward in a way they’ve never been with each other, that tempts Wanda to hang up just to avoid the painful conversation that’s sure to follow. She sucks in a quick breath once she’s found a thread of courage so she can say _something_.

“Look, I really--”

“Wanda, listen--”

Wanda stops immediately, breath held. Natasha powers on.

“God, you had me so fucking worried earlier. You were so upset, and it’s like you didn’t even hear me. Did you? Did you see me earlier?”

“Yeah,” Wanda snips, glaring at the ceiling. “Yeah, I saw you. Trust me.”

Natasha exhales loudly into the phone.

“So… so what? So you just decided to ignore me?”

“What do you care? You were busy anyway,” she replies, sounding just as bitter as she is. Her hand tightens around her phone, her feet sliding up the sheet as she draws her knees up. She reaches down to press into her skinned knee, into the scab already starting to form.

“What are you talking about? I wasn’t busy. I was just walking.”

“You weren’t _just_ walking,” Wanda shoots back with a sarcastic laugh, a sound so ugly she hates herself for even possessing it.

“What was I doing? Tell me.”

Another beat of quiet stretches out between them, waiting for Wanda to speak. She has no idea how they got here, how she ended up in this moment with this girl, but she’s here and even though it hurts, really fucking hurts, it’s more than she’s felt for anything or anyone else in over a year.

“Who was she?” Wanda asks quietly, getting right into the root of it, her throat clamping up tight.

“Who? Pepper? She’s just… a girl. Just somebody I go to school with.” Natasha sounds genuinely confused, and it strangely makes Wanda feel better. “Why? Do you know her?”

“Is she your girlfriend?”

She slams her eyes shut and holds her breath again, waiting for the blow.

“My girlfriend?” Natasha’s laugh is soft and relieved, a sound so close that Wanda can’t help but lean into it. “No. She’s not my girlfriend. Just a girl. And a friend.”

“You were flirting with her,” Wanda replies, thinking back on it and picturing them vividly, knowing with her gut she’s right, that she’s not misremembering. “I… I saw you. I saw the way you were looking at her. The way you were touching her. I _saw_ you, Nat.”

“So what? What does it matter? It didn’t _mean_ anything, Wanda. Not everything has to _mean_ something.”

The tears well in her eyes almost immediately, her face crumpling into a probably hideous expression as she starts to cry as quietly as she can.

“Well… well, maybe y-you should tell people when you’re doing things that don’t mean anything. Just in case it means something to _them_ and you end up hurting them--”

“Wanda, that’s not--”

“--because maybe not everybody just flirts with whoever they want to and it doesn’t ever mean anything. Maybe some people get attached to you and think you care about them and they don’t--”

“Wanda, _stop_ \--”

“--th-they don’t… maybe they wanted it to mean something to you, too,” she finishes, too out of breath to continue, the feeling of it hitching in her chest too close to being choked, to being suffocated. To panic.

“Wanda… Jesus _fuck_ , I wasn’t talking about _you_. God, I wasn’t fuckin’ talking about you. I didn’t mean that. That’s not what I fucking meant.” Natasha sounds desperate, pained, like a balled-up fist and gritted teeth. Wanda holds onto it and forces herself to keep talking.

“What did you mean, Nat? Say it. Tell me what you meant.”

“I meant with _Pepper_. She was cute and helped me with my homework and she lives a couple of streets over. I told her I’d walk home with her. She has a boyfriend and she’s going to be a missionary or some shit and I fuckin’ _promise_ you, she is not into me.”

“Yes, she is,” Wanda says, picturing the look on Pepper’s face all too clearly. “Trust me. I saw her.”

“Well,” Natasha stammers, like maybe that embarrasses her a little, “well, it doesn’t matter. I’m not into her, so it doesn’t matter one way or another.”

“Why not? She’s cute. You already said so. She’s smart and she has freckles and--”

“Because I’m only into _you_ , Wanda. Jesus fucking Christ!” Natasha all but hisses at her, not yelling, but Wanda can tell she wants to. She stops when she processes what she said, absolutely stops breathing, staring wide-eyed and blind up at the ceiling.

“...Me?” she mumbles.

“Are you--” Natasha cuts herself off, her laugh sharp in Wanda’s ear. “Are you kidding? You seriously can’t tell? You saw Pepper look at me for five seconds and think she’s in love with me, but you can’t tell how fucking gone I am for you?”

“You like me?” she whispers.

“Wanda,” Natasha says flatly, and then stops. A few sounds follow, ones that sound strangled in her throat. “God, you drive me fuckin’ crazy. Yes. _Yes_ , I fucking like you. In case you couldn’t tell, I’m insane about you. I want to get your name tattooed on my tits and spray-paint your name on my mom’s new church and knock you up with twins. _Yes_. I like you. A lot.”

“Even though I’m a… a complete mess?” She runs a hand over her bare stomach, feeling across the word etched there, reading it like braille. Her eyes hurt from crying so much today.

“Even though nothing,” Natasha replies too quickly to be a lie. “I don’t like you in spite of anything. I like you _because_ of everything. Even all the things you hate about yourself. I love the whole package of you. I love everything you’ve let me see of you. I want all of it. All of you.”

“Nat,” she breathes, cradling her phone against her cheek, closing her eyes and trying to recall Natasha’s exact scent, the heat of her in this very bed.

“Wanda, you’re killin’ me,” Natasha says low in her ear, the bass of her voice like a physical touch. “God, you’re _killing_ me. Talk to me. Please talk to me.”

“I like you, too,” she replies shyly, blushing for the truth of it. “It was… it killed me to see you with her today. I felt like I’d been replaced. Especially after you didn’t reply to my note.”

“Note? Where did you leave a note?”

“Under the angel on the front porch. On Friday. I asked you to write me back, and you never did.”

“Fucking Ana,” Natasha snaps. “She must’ve found it. I swear I didn’t see it. I’ve been trying to lay low, to be good so I can get ungrounded because I miss you. Like… _Christ_. So much. You have no idea.”

“Tell me,” she whispers, fingers playing along the waist of her panties. She sighs heavily into the speaker, licking her lips as she shifts on the bed. “Tell me, Nat.”

“Can’t stop thinking about the concert,” Natasha murmurs, throaty and so low. “About being pressed up behind you for two hours. God, you were all I could focus on. The way you moved, how you felt dancing right up against me. About your little bare shoulders and your bare neck and how sweaty you got. I could smell you. Smell your sweat and your perfume and your deodorant and how you let me hold you and--”

“Safe with you,” Wanda sighs, fingers dipping beneath the elastic, sliding over the trim, soft hair around her cunt, just petting it. “Felt safe.”

“You are safe with me,” Natasha says, strong and clear, with conviction. “Wanda, I’m right here. Nobody’s gonna hurt you when you’re with me. I’ll rip them apart with my bare fucking hands.”

“Miss you,” she mumbles as she bends one leg, her thighs falling open a little more. “Miss you in my bed.”

“You have no fucking idea how bad I wanna be in your bed right now,” Natasha groans, her breath coming hard and hot now, uncontrolled. “You were so fucking pretty in that little dress--”

“Just wearing panties now,” she whispers.

“Jesus fuck-- _God_.” Natasha honest to God _growls_ , and suddenly she’s somehow even closer, her voice right in Wanda’s ear. She runs her fingers down between her legs, massaging at her lips, hips tipping up to get at her hand. “What color?”

“Just white,” she tells her, wishing it was something better, sexier, wishing she’d had the forethought to lie. “Boyshorts.”

“I bet your ass looks amazing. Bet you can see right through ‘em. Bet your pussy feels so soft when you rub it over top of ‘em.”

Wanda pulls her hand out and obeys before she even registers the words, not holding back the quiet moan that wants to escape when she rubs herself through the soft cotton, just like Natasha said.

“It does,” she breathes, the words hitching in her throat as she grazes her clit.

“No bra either?”

“Hmm-mm.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Natasha groans. “Your tits drive me outta my goddamn mind--”

“Wanna see yours, too,” Wanda confesses in a rush, her cheeks flooding with heat. She shoves her hand into her panties again, working on instinct more than anything else. She spreads her legs wider and settles into it as she rubs her cunt, spreading the slick that’s already started around to get it all wet, avoiding her clit even though it’s already throbbing hot.

“Oh, yeah?” Natasha sounds like she’s smirking, pleased. “What else do you wanna see?”

“Everything,” Wanda replies immediately, adamant. “Oh, God. Everything.”

“You know what I want?” Natasha asks, and the hunger in her voice makes Wanda close her eyes, her left hand drifting up to rub across her breasts, tugging at both of her nipples until they’re stiff and raw. The sound she makes in her throat must be the go-ahead Nat was looking for, because she plunges on.

“Wanna eat you out,” she whispers in Wanda’s ear, and Wanda can tell she’s just as far gone as she is herself, that she’s touching herself, too. “Want to shove your legs apart and make you hold ‘em so I can see you. See everything. And I wanna get my mouth on you and lick you out until you scream. Want my entire face to get soaked. Wanna fucking _feel_ it when you come on my tongue--”

“Ohmygod,” Wanda grits out, her cunt giving a heart-pulsing throb that makes her flood with slick. She dips her fingers in it and hurries back to her clit, getting her middle finger on it and rubbing it in hard, desperate circles. “K-Keep… _Nat_ \--”

“Want you to flood my mouth until it’s like I’m eating a peach, j-just drinking you down as fast as I can and then I can get my mouth on your clit and suck it _hard_ \--”

“ _Yes,_ ” Wanda gasps, her arm tense, wrist aching as she strokes her clit, head pressing back hard against the pillow. “Suck it, oh _God_ \--”

“Come for me, Wanda. God, let me fuckin’ taste it.”

She convulses hard on the bed, her lashes fluttering as her feet scramble on the sheets, trying to get the leverage to thrust up against her hand as she comes in a hot, creamy rush, sobbing too loud in the quiet house but she can’t stop, can’t keep it in, can’t do anything but fuck her hand and ride the wave as Natasha falls apart with her, breathing frantically in her ear and making the most gorgeous, shocky little sounds, noises that Wanda is now determined to get her to make in person someday.

“Jesus,” she finally manages, her hand stilling on her cunt but she keeps it there, pressed tight against her sensitive clit. Natasha laughs, sweet and gravelly, a sound that feels like a kiss on her overheated skin.

“No kidding,” Natasha sighs. “I have to change my boxers now.”

Wanda smiles, in a daze, emotions coming up to the surface that she hadn’t expected, the tears that are never far away returning with a vengeance now.

“That was… I… I haven’t, um. That was the first time for me in a long time. Even… even just by myself.” She pauses, wishing she could be a little bit more of a grown-up about this, especially after she’d basically just had sex with Natasha. “Thank you.”

“This doesn’t mean that I’m expecting anything from you,” Natasha says, gentle and just as sleepy as Wanda feels. “I’m not expecting you to jump in bed with me or anything like that. I’ll follow your lead, okay? Nothing’s changing unless you want it to.”

Wanda can only nod, so grateful that she can’t do anything but let out a small hitch of a sob, and she swears Natasha understands because she stays quiet, gives Wanda time.

“This was good,” she whispers, reaching up to wipe a tear from her heated cheek. “And… and. I would… I’d like it if… well. Only if you want to, but--”

“Wanda?”

Wanda lets out the breath she’d been holding in a rush, her hand slipping out of her panties, fingers soaked.

“Hmm?”

“Do you wanna be my girlfriend?” Natasha asks, sweet and teasing, and Wanda knows the exact smile on her face right now. She grins, hiding her own face in the crook of her elbow.

“Yeah,” she says, biting her bottom lip to try and stop the smile that is so big it’s hurting her face. “Yes, please.”

“You gonna let me call you babe?”

Wanda beams.

“Yeah,” she replies, stretching on the bed like a cat, all loose-limbed and relaxed now.

“What about sugartits?”

She snorts, can’t help it, turning her face so the pillow can muffle her laugh.

“If you really want. But not in front of my mom,” she says.

“What about my little peach pit?”

Wanda laughs out loud this time, shaking her head at the girl who can’t see the unbelievably adoring look on her face.

“Anything you want,” she says.

“Oh, you’ll regret sayin’ that,” Natasha warns.

“I trust you,” she replies, and the words must sound as serious as she means them because Natasha only hums quietly, the sound like a kiss against her skin.

“That means the world to me,” Natasha says finally, the moment broken when she lets out a sudden yawn. “Mm. Sleep.”

“Sleep,” Wanda agrees.

“I’ll write you a letter tomorrow,” Natasha promises. “A good one.”

“Leave it on the bottom step of the ladder,” Wanda says.

“Yes, ma’am,” Natasha murmurs, such a flirty tone that Wanda can’t help but smile.

“Night,” she whispers.

“Goodnight, babe.”

Wanda buries her face against the warm glass of her phone screen, and if she presses a kiss to it, it’s her secret.

 

She shrugs Natasha’s jacket on in the morning even though it’s strangely warm out, and she’s smiling to herself as she floats out the front door and follows Peter to the car.

There’s a little bundle of wildflowers balanced on the passenger side mirror, little white and purple and yellow and red flowers tied with a piece of yarn. She picks them up and stares down at them in wonder, feeling beautiful and secretive and adored, all at once.

“Who’re those from?” Peter asks once they’re settled in the car, his eyebrows raised as he studies the tiny bouquet.

“Natasha,” Wanda replies casually, plucking one of the red flowers from the bunch and tucking it behind her ear, a smile pulling hard at her mouth as Peter just blinks at her.

“Are you two--”

“Just drive,” Wanda laughs, elbowing him and motioning down at the gearshift. She doesn’t know if she’ll ever stop smiling again.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An interlude. 
> 
> This chapter sees the narrative lift from a third-person personal point of view to a third-person omniscient point of view. I just needed a slightly outsider POV on Wanda, especially in this setting. <3

“Anything on your mind, Wanda?”

Wanda falls back onto the couch and kicks her Ked-clad feet up on the back cushions, crossing her legs at the ankles and letting her hair fan out over the armrest and dangle down in thick waves, dragging the floor.

She sighs.

“You like my new shoes?” She lifts one of her feet and points her toes up. “They’re butterfly print.”

Dr. Jones smiles at her patiently, running a hand through her thick black hair and tucking as much of it behind her ear as she can.

“They’re cute,” she replies, toeing out of her own shoes and pulling her legs up into the chair with her, a smile ghosting her mouth. “Anything else you wanna talk about?”

“I’ve thought about getting a butterfly tattoo,” she says, staring at her shoes, at the hint of her ankle in her short, skin-tight jeans, at her tight calf and the knock-knob of her knee through thin denim. “But my mom told me to really think about it and give it a few years to be sure because most people who get butterfly tattoos regret it later.”

Jessica Jones does smile then.

“Why do they regret them?”

Wanda tries to shrug from her increasingly ridiculous position, her head all but hanging over the edge of the couch now, restless and feeling strangely hyper, anxious.

“Because they’re a total cliché. Something romantic girls when they’re young because they’re pretty and something they’ve always liked. Like… horses and Brad Pitt.”

“And why do _you_ want a butterfly tattoo?”

“Because I want to think that I can change,” she says softly, lowering her leg back to cross the other and shifting so that her head is back on the pillow, her eyes on the ceiling. “That I can be better than this. Become… more than this.”

“Do you think you’re incomplete, Wanda? Or a work in progress?” Dr. Jones nearly reaches for her notebook but she doesn’t, keeps her hands in her lap, having learned long ago that the way to ensure that Wanda keeps talking is to keep from reminding her that this is a paid conversation, a studied one.

“Everybody is,” Wanda replies, a little more vulnerable than she likes. “That’s why I think it’s okay for girls to like butterflies. Because it’s okay to remember that you’re always working on yourself. Always becoming someone else.”

“Is there anything lately that’s made you feel like you’re becoming more?” She watches as Wanda’s eyes widen for the briefest second before she shuts down again, face closing off, arms wrapping protectively around her scarred stomach. She shrugs, her mouth firmly closed, and it takes everything in Dr. Jones to keep from sighing.

She waits Wanda out, and when she doesn’t say anything else, Dr. Jones leans back in the chair and crosses her own arms.

“Nothing? That’s all I’m getting this session?” 

“Why don’t _you_ talk, if you’re feeling so chatty?” Wanda snaps, decidedly keeping her eyes up and off of her psychiatrist.

“Okay,” Dr. Jones replies evenly, keeping her eyes on Wanda as she starts to speak. “I was thinking about you yesterday. It was my day off, and nobody was paying me. I was at home with my wife and relaxing and should’ve been thinking about anything but work, but there I was, thinking about Wanda Maximoff. Wondering how you really are, how much you think about that you don’t say to me or tell me about. If I could be helping you better if I knew. If talking to another doctor would be better for you instead of me.”

“No,” comes Wanda’s reply, her voice so small, a breath. “No, please. I’m… I don’t want another doctor.”

Dr. Jones falls quiet, letting Wanda struggle with whatever is going on in her head for a little bit longer, waiting to see if she says anything else. She doesn’t.

“You were referred to me by Dr. Udaku eight months ago. He said that he walked into the room and you curled up in the chair and couldn’t meet his eyes. Said you kicked him when he tried to ask if you were okay--”

“He t-touched me,” Wanda interrupts, struggling to sit up, to shove herself into a ball in the corner of the couch, arms around her legs. “He touched my shoulder.”

“I understand that,” Dr. Jones says gently. “I know you have issues about touching and physical boundaries. I’m not faulting you for your reaction. I mean simply to say that you were referred to me, and you’ve been coming to meet for nearly nine months. Why do you think you were okay with me and not with Dr. Udaku?”

“I. Don’t. Know,” she grits out, chin resting on her knees, hair falling around her face.

“Do you want to know what I think?” Dr. Jones asks.

Wanda doesn’t reply, just stares at the floor in front of her, at the floral pattern on the rug that she’s traced with her eyes a thousand times.

“I think you’re only comfortable around women now,” Dr. Jones says as carefully as she can, without sympathy but with understanding. “That being in the presence of any man that you don’t know makes you so afraid that you can’t properly function.” She pauses. “Does that sound possible to you?”

“I talked to a man last week,” Wanda blurts out, eyes still down, rocking in place a little bit. “At a concert.”

Dr. Jones’ eyes widen in surprise.

“You… you went to a concert?” The smile that takes over her face is stupidly real, so big she’s almost embarrassed for herself. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Wanda shoots back obstinately, finally looking up and all but rolling her eyes at Dr. Jones even as her face heats up. “So?”

“ _So_ ,” Dr. Jones laughs, dropping her feet back to the floor and leaning forward in her seat. “Wanda, that’s _huge_. That’s amazing. Who did you go see?”

“A band called Young Summer,” Wanda says, reaching for her phone on the end table but stopping before she grabs it. “You’ve probably never heard them. They’re kind of an indie pop band.”

“Yeah, you’re right. There’s no way I could’ve heard of them. If it won’t play on my phonograph, I won’t listen to it,” Dr. Jones teases, grinning when Wanda looks up at her with a smirk.

“Smartass,” Wanda says with a smile that she can’t help. 

“Who did you go with?” she asks with deliberate casualness, getting the impression that this is the crux of this whole session, of the way Wanda’s been acting today. “A boy?”

Wanda shakes her head, letting go of her legs so she can fold them up in her lap in a way that looks like a complicated yoga pose, but she seems comfortable in her lazy, young slouch, her threadbare white t-shirt, her soft brown hair that seems to go on forever, not a stitch of makeup on her pretty face. Her face that is flushed, her pupils blown, delicate hands fidgeting in her lap.

Dr. Jones raises an eyebrow as she waits her out.

“A girl,” Wanda finally says, hands twisting and tangling as she looks around the room, anywhere but Dr. Jones. “A new family moved in next door a couple of weeks ago, and one of them is a girl my age. Natasha.”

Natasha. Sounds like the name of a heartbreaker.

“Does she go to your school?” Dr. Jones asks instead.

“No. Her family’s like… super strict Seventh Day Adventist. She goes to some special high school where she can’t be tainted by the rest of us.” Wanda rolls her eyes, glancing up at Dr. Jones.

“What’s she like?” Dr. Jones asks, genuinely curious and so it probably comes out more gossipy than she means it to.

“She’s…” Wanda starts, her eyes widening as she shakes her head slowly, like she’s trying to gather the words. “She’s… amazing. She wears, like. Old band shirts, but she actually listens to the bands, you know? And this leather jacket that is so soft, like it’s been around forever.”

She glances over at the other end of the couch at the jacket draped over the arm, and Dr. Jones can’t help but follow the look, seeing exactly the jacket in question, all faded black and at least twenty years old and nearly identical to the moto jacket Jessica Jones has hanging on a hook in the closet behind Wanda.

Yeah. Natasha is definitely, definitely a heartbreaker.

“She let you borrow her jacket?” she asks quietly, and when Wanda looks up at her, caught, she gives her a knowing smile. 

“A few days ago. After the concert. I was cold, and being at the show kind of… it was hard. Exhausting. She drove us home because I just kind of passed out in the passenger seat. She got us tickets to the show. Her friend Sam works for some radio station in Portland. He’s the guy I talked to. She stayed close to me at the concert, made sure nobody else could push me or crowd me or anything.”

“She sounds nice. Like a good friend. Somebody good to have around.” It’s delightful, how pink Wanda’s cheeks get. “What does she look like?”

Wanda sucks in a sharp breath, and Dr. Jones settles back in her seat, pleased that she’d hit the nail on the head.

“She’s… she’s just kind of fucking gorgeous, you know? Just amazing. Really green eyes and this full mouth and crazy red hair. She asked me to shave her head.” She shakes her head in disbelief, her eyes almost sparkling as she grins at Dr. Jones. “She asked _me_ to _shave her head_.”

Dr. Jones laughs.

“Did you?”

“Yeah,” Wanda nods, like she’s just as surprised as Dr. Jones is. “Yeah, I did. She just… she makes me feel like I can do anything. Like I’m not just a lost cause. She’s… she’s just…”

“Amazing?” Dr. Jones supplies before Wanda can say it for a third time.

“Yeah,” she sighs, falling over onto her side on the couch and watching Dr. Jones carefully. She just lets her for awhile, just watches Wanda watching her and waits for her to sort the words out. “Dr. Jones?”

“Hmm?”

“When did you know? That… that you liked girls?”

“Ah,” Dr. Jones says, sighing herself as she looks up at the ceiling and tries to think. “Hard to say. Maybe since I was really little. And I definitely, definitely knew after I saw Julia Roberts in _Pretty Woman_ when I was eight.”

“The red dress?” Wanda guesses, practically grinning.

“ _God_ , that _fucking_ red dress,” Dr. Jones groans, slouching in her own chair and dragging her legs up, feet catching on the base of the cushion, feeling like she’s in high school again. “Yeah. That definitely did it. So let’s go with eight years old.”

“Hmm,” Wanda says, her grin fading into something more thoughtful.

“How about you?” She holds her breath, praying that Wanda doesn’t just clam up again, and she exhales quietly when Wanda meets her eyes again.

“Two weeks ago?” she says almost meekly.

“That’s okay, too,” Dr. Jones shrugs. “Sometimes people are born knowing. Sometimes it takes until they grow up a little and move out and change their surroundings. Sometimes it just takes meeting the right person. Sometimes it’s not about all girls and just about _one_ girl.”

“I don’t even know if it’s just one _girl_ ,” Wanda says, so quiet that Dr. Jones barely hears her. “I think… I mean, I don’t know. I’m so fucked up right now, so who knows? But it’s kind of… nobody but her.”

“That’s okay,” Dr. Jones replies, matching Wanda’s tone. “You know that, right? It’s okay, whatever you’re feeling. It’s valid. It’s all valid.”

“Even if I’m just not attracted to anyone because I was tortured and raped?” Wanda says almost bitingly, but Dr. Jones can tell all the anger is directed inward.

“No matter the reason,” she replies firmly. “You could’ve been born asexual. You could just not be experiencing sexual attraction currently due to your trauma. That’s for no one to say but you. And whatever the reason you feel what you feel, it’s all still valid. If I was only attracted to girls because I was molested by my older brother until I was seventeen, that’s valid.”

She holds Wanda’s eyes, making sure she understands, that she hears the confession there for what it is. Wanda’s whole expression softens, and for the first time since she started coming here, Dr. Jones feels like Wanda is acting _looking_ at her now.

“Okay,” Wanda whispers, searching her eyes, those wide green ones shining with tears that makes Dr. Jones wish she could go hug her.

“You wanna talk about it?” Dr. Jones asks.

“The other night,” Wanda starts slowly, lowering her gaze again, “we had a, um. Kind of a misunderstanding. And we had an argument about it. On the phone. And she told me how she feels about me. Just kind of… confessed to having feelings for me, to being attracted to me. And I just… it was the most amazing feeling? I felt so close to her, and being on the phone was… I felt--”

“Safe,” Dr. Jones murmurs.

“Yeah,” Wanda nods, her chin trembling the tiniest bit as twin tears fall from both her eyes, racing down her softly round cheeks at different speeds. “I felt safe. Like I was with her, but I didn’t have to worry about being touched. And we… we had sex on the phone. She just sort of talked me through it and I… I haven’t… since that happened to me last year, I haven’t felt _anything_. Haven’t been turned on by anything, haven’t, um. Touched myself or anything. But… but she made me feel. She got me off. It was so good. It was incredible. I feel totally different, even though nothing really happened. Is that stupid?”

“That’s not stupid at all, Wanda,” she replies, leaning forward again and shaking her head. “Something _did_ happen. You experienced sexual attraction. You were vulnerable with somebody. You trusted her with yourself, even if it was just on the phone. That’s huge. Don’t you think?”

Wanda nods again, hesitating for only a second before she reaches across the couch and grabs the jacket, pulling it across her chest like a blanket that she snuggles down into. 

Dr. Jones smiles.

“Do you wanna see a picture of her?” Wanda finally asks, her voice a little shaky, watered-down.

“Definitely,” Dr. Jones replies, probably faster than she should have. She climbs up from her chair and joins Wanda on the couch, sitting beside her but making sure to keep a few inches between them, just in case.

Wanda already has her phone in her hands, and she’s tapping on the screen and scrolling for a few seconds before her face smooths out, her mouth breaking into the shyest smile. She glances over at Dr. Jones out of the corner of her eyes and handing her phone over.

Dr. Jones stares at the picture, at the girl with the gorgeous cheekbones and bad girl-eyeliner and shaved head smirking at the camera like she’s thinking very unclean thoughts.

“Holy shit,” she blurts out.

“Right?!” Wanda laughs, leaning in close to look at the phone, too. Dr. Jones stays very still, and she almost can’t breathe when Wanda rests her cheek on the curve of her shoulder.

Nine months. This is the first time she’s touched Wanda. She swallows down her emotion and hands her the phone back, careful not to disturb the way Wanda is leaning on her.

“She’s a fox,” she tells her, resting her cheek on top of Wanda’s head and watching her stare down at the phone, fingers petting across the picture with that beautiful, brand-new kind of longing only teenagers can manage.

“She’s my girlfriend,” Wanda says, soft as a confession, but Dr. Jones can hear the smile in the words.

“Good,” she replies, wishing she could give Natasha a high-five herself for pulling Wanda out of her shell, even just a little bit.


	7. Chapter 7

On the way out to the car, Wanda stops and spares a glance at Nat’s house, at the tree between them. A piece of white paper tucked between the wooden step and the tree trunk is immediately visible, and a grin breaks out onto Wanda’s face as she dashes from the porch and over to the tree.

“Where you goin’?” Peter yells after her, trying to shove his laptop into his bag while Magda follows up behind him, pulling the door closed after them and fumbling with the keys to her own car.

“She got a note from her girlfriend,” Magda informs him, and Wanda grabs the note before she turns to squint in the morning sun at her mom and brother, giving them what is probably a smug-as-fuck grin as she jogs back over to them.

“I knew it!” Peter exclaims.

“Have a good day at school!” Magda calls before pulling her car door closed.

Wanda unfolds the note before she even gets to the car, too eager to know what it says to wait. The handwriting is careful and small, the note folded so precisely it looks like each one was measured.

_Love those summer sky blue panties on you._

“Jesus,” Wanda laughs, breathless, her cheeks heating up as she turns to smirk back at Natasha’s house even though all the Romanoffs are already gone. The second she settles into her seat, Peter is there beside her, his grubby fingers reaching for the note.

“Is it dirty? Lemme see. I bet she’s so dirty.” 

“Paws off!” She slaps at his hands and hurries to fold the note up, tucking it into her purse and pulling her seatbelt on. “It’s none of your business if she is or not.”

“My little sister’s gettin’ soooome,” he sings not so subtly under his breath as he backs out of the driveway.

“Twelve minutes, dillhole. _Twelve._ ”

 

A high-pitched whistle from high up makes Wanda jump when she nearly reaches her house. She stops where she is and looks around, her eyes wide, every muscle frozen.

“Hey, good lookin’!”

Wanda breaks into a grin, squinting up at Natasha perched on the roof of her house just like that very first afternoon.

Except now Natasha’s her girlfriend.

“You scared me,” she calls up as she crosses the yard, double-checking that Ana’s not home before she starts to climb the ladder to get up on the roof.

“I’m sorry,” Natasha says when Wanda makes her way over, and Wanda is surprised by the genuine remorse she sees there. “I shouldn’t’ve… ugh. I shouldn’t have catcalled you, that was awful.”

She sighs, and slouches, her bottom lip poking out as she lowers her eyes.

“Sorry,” she repeats in a mumble.

Wanda grins as she settles in beside her, leaning in perilously close, their shoulders nearly touching.

“I promise I don’t mind,” she says softly.

“It was gross,” Natasha protests, her lashes long and dark without any mascara, eyes so vivid green in the afternoon sun. Wanda stares at the beauty mark on her cheek and wonders how long she’s been this gay.

“Girlfriend privileges,” Wanda tells her, grinning when Natasha looks up from under her lashes. “You’re the only one that gets to do it.”

“You sure you haven’t changed your mind?” Her voice is low and pleased, making Wanda’s belly swoop. She sighs and it sounds like a purr as she leans even closer, so close she can feel the heat from Natasha’s body, she can smell her. It’s been days since she’s been this close, close enough to touch.

“Never,” she whispers, her eyes fluttering closed as Natasha tips her head up mouth so close to Wanda’s cheek that it makes her shiver.

“I fucking miss you,” Natasha tells her, quiet as a kiss on her skin. “Just have to get through this weekend and I’m officially ungrounded.”

“Really?” Wanda lifts back to meet her eyes, beaming at the surprise news. “So… so does that mean we can like--”

“Go out on a real date? Spend time together? Do more than just sit on my roof and see how long I can restrain myself from asking to see your tits?”

Wanda throws her head back and laughs, full and delighted, feeling strangely sexy even though she’s just wearing a grey pullover hoodie and jeans that belonged to her mom in the nineties.

“You already know what color my panties were yesterday. Why don’t you just get an eyeful while I’m getting dressed?” She runs her fingers over the bracelets on Natasha’s arm, over the tied strips of fabric and the little silver charms hanging from some of them.

“What do you mean?” Natasha sounds confused but she’s still smiling, like there’s a joke she’s not in on. She turns her arm over and rests it on her thigh, letting Wanda touch the bracelets one by one.

“The note,” Wanda laughs, reaching back with her other hand to dig around in her pocket for the piece of paper she’s kept there, looked at all day. She hands it over to Natasha and gets back to her bracelets, to almost-almost touching her skin. “My brother almost got his hands on it this morning. Not that it matters. He already knows. So does my mom.”

She almost tells her about Dr. Jones, about the conversation they had, and the pride of being able to tell people about her girlfriend makes the smile on her face stretch so wide it nearly hurts.

“Wanda,” Natasha says, her voice strange, almost flat.

“I know,” Wanda sighs, letting her hand fall away from the bracelets as she reaches up to mess with her own hair, sitting back a little as she fidgets. “I should’ve asked first. I just… I was so happy and--”

“I didn’t write this.”

Wanda stops, blinking a few times as she processes those four words. She looks up at Natasha again and finds her eyes, staring into them and seeing nothing but truth and bewilderment.

“...What?” she manages.

“I…” Natasha shakes her head, looking down at the note again, eyes flicking over the words like she’s double checking. She looks back up, her face drawn. “I didn’t write this. I _wouldn’t_... I wouldn’t do that.”

“What do you mean?” She snatches the note back, the paper fluttering in her hands that are suddenly shaking. She can’t seem to draw a full breath, her throat closed up too tight for it. “What do you mean you didn’t write it? You… you _had_ to. Who else… who else would--”

Natasha jumps up then, nearly stumbling as she tries to get around Wanda. She hurries to the other side of the roof and the platform leftover from the treehouse still there, just a few slats of moldy wood covered in faded crayon drawings. Wanda shoves the note in the pouch of her hoodie and hurries along after her, her heart pounding in her ears, dread consuming her so completely she can’t even speak.

Natasha is at the bottom by the time Wanda makes it to the ladder, crouching to stare at the ground around the tree, at the bottom step where the note had been tucked this morning.

“I didn’t write it,” Natasha says again, standing to her full height and facing Wanda, forcing her to meet her eyes. “I swear.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better,” Wanda whispers, the words barely audible. She feels exposed suddenly, like she’s being watched. She presses her shoulder against the tree and pulls the hood up over her head, burrowing down into the hoodie like it can shield her.

“We should call the police,” Natasha says, hurrying past Wanda toward her house.

“No!” Wanda grabs her hand, the first time she’s ever really touched her. Natasha stops in her tracks, turning slowly to look down at where Wanda is still holding her hand, and Wanda is stunned to see the tears in Natasha’s eyes when she looks up.

“He wasn’t ever arrested,” Natasha says slowly, moving in closer, turning her hand so that their palms can line up. “Was he?”

“They never found him,” Wanda shrugs, struggling to maintain physical contact, to keep herself from trying to comfort Natasha even as she deals with her own terror. “But… but it’s been so long. It’s almost been a year. He wouldn’t come back here. He wouldn’t.”

“Listen, I’m going out of town this weekend,” Natasha replies, her fingers lacing between Wanda’s, their rings clinking. “My grandparents’ 75th anniversary. I’m only going to be in Portland--”

“So is the rest of my family,” Wanda says with a dull laugh. “Peter’s got a track meet. They’ll be there until Saturday night.”

“You’re going to stay here by yourself?” Natasha is so close their chests are nearly touching, and the anger in her voice strangely makes Wanda feel better.

“It’s not a big deal,” she says, forcing herself to look up at her. “I have two papers due Monday. I’ll be okay. It was probably Peter anyway, just fucking with me.”

“I’ll have my phone,” Natasha says, reaching into her pocket to hold it up as proof. “If you need me, Wanda, I will drop fucking everything and come home to you. Okay?”

“I’ll be okay,” she says again, forcing herself to sound more confident this time. We have a security system now. And I have a knife. I can--”

“You aim for dick, stomach, throat, and eyes. You kick and kick and run like hell. Mash your fucking thumbs in his eyes, kick him in the balls, and run. Or slam the heel of your hand straight up against his nose. You hear me?” Natasha grips her hand so hard it almost hurts, and she’s used the hold to pull Wanda closer, their foreheads nearly touching. “Promise me.”

She doesn’t tell her nothing’s going to happen, that she’ll be okay, because that’s not what Natasha wants to hear. She just presses their foreheads together finally, her eyes slipping closed as she breathes in what Natasha breathes out.

“Promise,” she whispers.

“I can stay home,” Natasha says, nose dragging against Wanda’s cheek. It’s so close, so intimate that she’s afraid, she nearly pulls back. _It’s Natasha_ , she tells herself, over and over again. _It’s okay because it’s Nat._

She shakes her head, her hair falling from her shoulders to frame her face, curtaining them. She forces herself to breathe, to hold on to this feeling of being safe. She’s come so far in the last couple of weeks, she’s so much more herself again, more than she’s ever been. She’s not going to let her fear control her. Not anymore.

“I’ll be okay.”

 

Wanda sits down at her desk, a cup of delicate-smelling jasmine tea on a hand-crocheted cosy to her right, wearing her girlfriend’s Ani DiFranco shirt and a pair of black running shorts that leave her legs completely bare, something she’s becoming more and more comfortable with in the safety of her room. The whole Xanax she’d taken is helping tremendously.

“I’m hipster as fuck right now,” she says to absolutely no one.

She looks at the awaiting Google Doc file, at the few sentences she’d half-heartedly typed out earlier and gives them a determined frown. She was going to finish this paper or die trying.

Dr. Jones had emailed her a list of Cocteau Twins songs the other day, and she’d compiled them all together in a Spotify playlist for exactly this moment. She hits shuffle on the playlist and takes the first sip of her tea when a song starts up, filling her room with dreamy sounds instead of just her headphones.

She’s home alone, after all.

Just as she sets her mug down, her phone vibrates where it’s charging next to the laptop. She knows who it is before she even touches the phone.

_missing my girl <3_

Wanda grins, biting her bottom lip as she taps out a reply.

_miss you too. how’s the party going?_

_lots of dry chicken and gardenia perfume and really really slow present opening. i know you’re doing homework. just wanted to say hi. text me if you need me k?_

_will do. promise_ She digs out the kissy face emoji and tacks it on, forcing herself to tuck her phone behind the computer so she doesn’t start thinking about sending over dirty pictures she’s been mentally composing all evening.

Dreamy pop fills the room and the tea in her cup gets lower and lower as she types, the sun having set long ago, leaving moody clouds outside and wind that makes the trees outside sway.

The treehouse tree’s branches reach out and touch her window, and the rustle of them against the glass is constant and unsettling. She refuses to turn and look, refuses to give into the fear. Her eyes burn from staring at the screen for so long, the light from the desk lamp warm and breaking up the shadows in the room. She turns the music down a little as her nerves set in, and she can’t get over the distinct feeling of being watched.

She grabs the phone where it’s been hidden behind her computer the last couple of hours, just clutching it in her sweaty palm, her feet pressed flat to the floor, leg muscles tensed.

_Don’t turn around. Don’t turn around._

She feels it like fingertips along the back of her neck, and it makes her shudder, her heart racing in the trap of her ribs as her adrenaline spikes. The words on the computer screen become a blur, and she realizes that she’s not looking at them, that she’s looking _through_ them, at the reflection on the screen of the room behind her, of the window.

She goes as still as a rabbit, unable to even blink as she watches the window’s reflection, seeing the faint movement of the leaves outside of it, the faint glow of streetlight, the--

A shadow moves across the window.

It’s real, it’s human-sized and solid even there on her computer screen. She sees the barest hint of a hand before she gasps, shoves her computer chair back, and bolts from the room.

She thunders down the stairs, deaf to the sounds of her own terror, the audible heaves of her breath, the whimpers that ride along after each one. She jumps the last two stairs and flies to the alarm system by the front door, her hands shaking violently as she double checks that it’s set, ready to sound if any of the doors or windows are disturbed.

It’s utterly dark downstairs, and it’s by memory alone that she gets through the dining room to the kitchen. She’s crying now, hysterical sobs bubbling out of her helplessly, phone clutched in her hand like a lifeline.

The pantry is huge, well-stocked and organized with plenty of room under the bottom shelves for a teenage girl. She pulls the door closed as quietly as she can, left in complete darkness as she sinks down to the floor, crawling over beneath the shelves and pushing into a corner as best as she can, her knees to her chin, face tucked down against them.

She tries to hold her breath, to trap in her whimpers so she can hear, so she can listen. She strains for any sounds but hears nothing, nothing but the faint rush of the wind and the desperate thud of her own heart.

She tries to hide her phone between her thighs and her chest to block the light as she finds her father’s phone number, grateful beyond words that he answers on the second ring.

“Hey, kiddo--”

“Daddy,” she whispers, feeling scared all over again, like it’s safe to be just because he’s on the phone.

“Wanda.” There’s movement, a rustle, and his voice is suddenly closer. “Wanda, what’s wrong?”

“T-There… t-t-there was so-someone at my window. Daddy, there was someone at my window!” She sobs because she can’t help it, because this is, to the letter, her absolute worst nightmare, and there’s no one around. No one to help her. 

“Wanda, where are you? Did you call the police?” There are more voices in the background, the distinct sound of her mom’s voice, and Wanda can feel all the miles between them like they’re an ocean all together. There’s no way. No way they can get here in time.

“In the pa--in the pantry. I’m downstairs. I’m… I can’t--” Her voice cuts off as her throat closes up, panic settling in finally, and she can do absolutely nothing but shake, but try to be as small as she can in this place in the pantry where maybe he won’t look, but hope she hasn’t been too loud.

He’ll find her. He always said he would. He always told her he would find her if she tried to run.

“--the police right now. I’ll call them. I’m leaving right now. It’s going to take me an hour to get there, but I’ll be there as soon as I can. Call me when the police get there, alright?”

“Daddy,” she sobs, terrified of hanging up with him, her phone screen damp with tears.

“Baby, I have to hang up so I can call the police. It’ll be alright. They’ll be there soon.” He sounds near-tears himself, and the thought that he’s scared is maybe the most terrifying thing of all. “Just stay where you are. Don’t move until they get there. Okay?”

“Okay,” she whispers. The call ends and she stares at her phone, at the list of frequently called numbers. Her thumb hovers over Natasha’s number, and she almost taps it when she hears a thump from upstairs. She drops her phone in a clatter on the tiled floor, a hand clapping over her mouth so she doesn’t scream.

She snatches her phone back up and tucks her face against the screen, burrowed in as tiny as she can get, as hidden as she can possibly be. She can’t stop crying but she’s trying to be quiet about it, and all she can think is that if he gets her again, he’ll kill her. He’ll kill her, and she never got to kiss Natasha.

She can’t die. She can’t.

She can picture her knife on top of her dresser, the place she’d put it when she took it out of her pocket earlier. She thinks about what Natasha had said, about where to hit, where to kick. She pictures it, tries to force the strength into her body that she’ll need to escape.

What if he’s in the house? What if he’s in her room? What if he’s looking for her? What if he’s being quiet like he was last time, so quiet that nobody heard him, nobody knew she was gone until morning. By then, she was gone, miles away. She was cuffed to a bed and had already been raped once, had been left to cry and bleed between her legs and accept her fate.

If he finds her tonight, she’ll be dead by morning. She knows it.

“I won’t,” she whispers as soft as she can, her voice shaking so hard the words are barely words at all. “I won’t.”

The knock on the front door is as shocking as a bullet. She startles, crying out in complete helplessness and pushing her feet against the floor to try and shove back even tighter against the wall.

“Wanda? This is Officer Hill and my partner Officer Coulson. Can you open the door for us, please?” 

A woman’s voice, muffled but audible in the silent house. Wanda opens her eyes, staring out into the darkness, her breath held as she tries to make herself move.

“Wanda? Your father called the police. You know who I am. We’ve spoken a few times over the last several months. Maria Hill? Do you remember me?”

“Maria?” Wanda mumbles, pushing forward onto her hands and knees, phone clasped still in her hand. She uses the doorknob to pull herself up though she can’t manage to stand up completely, can only move in a cower, her whole body curled in on itself, ready to hit the ground again, to crawl to someplace hidden, to safety.

The trek to the front door is a blur, the code to disarm the alarm muscle memory alone. She unlocks the door and opens it, flicking on the light to find Maria Hill and her partner Phil, two people who had been there that first morning, who knew her whole story.

Maria had stayed with her through the rape kit, through the examination, after the shower. At the sight of her, Wanda blinks, a fog lifted.

“Maria?”

She flings herself at her, not thinking about how much she hates being touched, how Maria has her hand down near her gun, not thing about anything but being safe, but not going with him, not being taken again, but _surviving_.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Maria says, her voice strained, like she’s startled. Wanda shakes against her, tensing when Maria’s arms wrap around her, when she steps in and guides Wanda back into the house. “C’mon, let’s go inside.”

Suddenly the lights are on and it looks like home again, and Maria is guiding her to the couch and snagging the throw off the chair and wrapping it around Wanda. She clutches the ends of the blanket, shaking like she’s freezing, and she realizes somewhere in her fucked-up mind that she probably looks absolutely insane to this poor woman.

“My partner is checking around the entire house and then he’s going to look in every room, just to make sure no one is here,” Maria says, her voice slow and calm. Competent. She’s sitting close enough for Wanda to reach out for her, if she wanted to. She doesn’t, can’t believe she let herself be so dramatic before, that she’d clung to Maria like a little girl. She looks down at her bare legs, avoids her eyes.

“T-The tree,” she whispers, curling down around herself, hair dragging against her knees. “I saw someone. In the tree.”

“The tree where he…?” Maria sits up, and Wanda can’t help but watch her eyes, watch her look in the direction of it. She can only nod in reply, tears falling silently from her eyes, splashing on her thighs.

“The treehouse is gone. But there’s a k-kind of landing, I guess. I swear I’m not making this up, Maria.” She meets her eyes again when Maria looks back at her, searching them, desperate to be understood. Believed. “I swear. And there was a note--”

“A note?” Maria interrupts, her pretty face darkening, eyebrows drawing together. She leans in even closer. “Wanda, where is the note?”

“Upstairs. In the back pocket of my jeans. They’re… on the floor, I guess.” She pulls her legs up onto the couch, folding them up so she can hide them under the blanket.

“I’ll go--” Maria starts, standing up.

“No!” Wanda yells, her hand snatching up from the blanket to grab Maria’s wrist, clinging to it as the tears fill her eyes even faster, breath caught in a sob in her throat. “No, please don’t leave me please don’t leave me alone please--”

“Okay,” Maria says, sitting back down next to her, her arm relaxed so that Wanda can hold on to it. “Phil can get it when he goes upstairs. I’m not going anywhere. I’m sorry.”

“Perimeter secure,” Phil says when he comes into the house, his flashlight on but his gun is still in his belt. “I’ll check upstairs first.”

“Your dad is on his way home,” Maria says after telling Coulson about the note, turning her arm under Wanda’s grip, her hand loose, so trusting. Like Natasha had been earlier. Wanda stares at her pale wrist, at the gun callouses on her fingers, her palm. She looks up at her, into her eyes that are a deep blue, that are completely focused on Wanda.

“You’re really pretty,” Wanda tells her.

Maria laughs, short and surprised, and Wanda ducks her head to hide her face, from her own awkwardness.

“Sorry,” she mumbles.

“It’s alright, I promise,” Maria says, a smile still in her voice. “I just want you to know that I believe you, Wanda. I do.”

“I thought you all thought I was crazy,” Wanda replies, letting go of Maria’s soft wrist and pushing back into the corner of the couch, tucking up the same way she’d been in the pantry. She’s called the police several times over the last eleven months, from school, from home, from the grocery store, every single time in paralyzing terror that she was being followed, that he’d found her, that he was back. “All those false alarms--”

“When you go through something like the thing that happened to you, it’s understandable that you feel unsafe everywhere. That you feel a threat everywhere. If there’s a note this time--”

“All clear upstairs,” comes Phil’s voice, followed by his footsteps on the stairs. Wanda breathes a sigh of relief, but the dread in the pit of her stomach grows, like she’s just waiting now. If it’s not tonight, it might be tomorrow night.

Phil hands the note to Maria but it’s in a plastic bag now, open so that the writing on it is visible. Wanda watches Maria read it, watches the frown deepen on her face.

“Who else has touched this note?” she asks.

“Just me,” Wanda replies, just seeing those words again in that too-perfect script makes her stomach turn, makes bile burn at the back of her throat. “And my girlfriend, Nat.”

“When did you get it?” 

“This… this morning,” Wanda says slowly, a little disoriented by the thought. Was that really only this morning? It seems like years ago now. “It was on the bottom step of the ladder on the tree. Where Natasha and I usually put notes to each other.”

“I think they should cut that goddamn tree down,” Maria says almost to herself, handing the note back to Phil and frowning out the window past Wanda’s head. Wanda shakes her head, arms around her stomach, rocking back and forth a little with a mirthless smile.

“It’s not the tree’s fault,” she replies, the same thing she’s said a dozen times since last spring. “It’s a fucking psycho rapist’s fault.”

Maria smiles, one side of her mouth tugged up. 

“Touché,” she sighs, pausing for a minute to listen to the radio on her hip before she turns her attention back to Wanda. “Your dad should be here soon. We’re going to wait here with you until he gets back. Phil’s gonna stay out in the car to keep an eye out, and I’ll be right here.”

“I’m tired,” Wanda says softly, the last bit of adrenaline seeping out of her, leaving her feeling hollow, completely drained, like she couldn’t possibly leave this couch again.

“Rest,” Maria murmurs, moving to the chair to give Wanda the whole couch. “I’m not going anywhere.”

She slides down until her head is resting on the pillow, legs pulled up until she’s almost in the fetal position. She tucks the blanket under her feet and pulls it up as far as it’ll go above her shoulders, taking a deep breath that doesn’t relax her.

She reaches for her phone on the coffee table, opening up the text to Natasha and staring at the screen for a long moment as she considers what to say.

_something happened tonight. or... maybe it was nothing, but the police are here. i’m okay now. i’m going to sleep. so drained. please call me in the morning, okay?_

She hits send, worrying that she’s just going to send Natasha into a panic, that she said too much or not enough, that she shouldn’t have texted her at all. But it’s already done.

She curls the phone against her chest and burrows down into the blanket, sleep finding her the second her eyes close.

 

“Hey, beetlebug,” comes a quiet voice, somewhere just above Wanda’s jerky, fearful dream. There are arms around her suddenly, strong ones lifting her up like she weighs nothing, like she’s a little girl.

“Dad,” she mumbles, her eyes staying closed as she cradles her phone with one hand, her other arm lifting to wrap around his neck. There’s the sensation of movement, of walking, of going upstairs. The house is quiet again, the lights low, like maybe everything’s okay.

“You’re okay,” he says softly. There’s the creak of a door and then the soft familiarity of her bed. She turns onto her side as he pulls the covers up over her, the light by the bed going off. “I’m here now. I’m gonna sit right over there at your desk until morning. Nothing’s gonna happen, okay?”

“Okay, Daddy,” she whispers. She’s got to be little, got to be young again, to feel so safe. Fell asleep reading, fell asleep in a pile of toys that she’ll have to pick up in the morning. He kisses her forehead and pets her hair, and she can’t help but sigh, but snuggle down under the blankets and let sleep find her again.

“He won’t hurt you again,” she barely makes out before she falls asleep again. “I’ll kill the son of a bitch myself.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> schmoop ahoy! i simultaneously apologize and say you're welcome for all of it.
> 
> (this is the second to last chapter! eep!)

“No, thanks. I’ll wait for her.”

They’re strange words, cryptic ones straight out of a dream, but they pull Wanda into the waking world, make her lashes flutter before her eyes open.

She’s greeted by a sight that is barely believable:

Natasha in a black dress that make her tits look like something you have to pay to see, sitting on the floor next to her bedroom door, her feet bare, eyeliner faded on her eyes and Wanda’s father standing in the doorway, looking down at her with a plate of waffles and scruff on his normally clean-shaven face. They both look exhausted.

“Hey,” she says, her voice soft and scratchy, but both of them react immediately, heads jerking over to look at her, two sets of eyes widening.

“Babe,” Natasha practically whispers, pushing herself away from the wall and kneeling beside the bed in under a second, her eyes filled with tears, hands clutching at the edge of the blanket wrapped around Wanda. “Jesus fucking Christ, I was so scared. I got that text and I was so fucking _scared_ \--”

“I’m okay,” Wanda promises, her own eyes burning as she fights to free her hands from under the covers and reach for Natasha, feeling that strange vulnerability that sleep can sometimes bring, that unprotected rawness right up at the surface, making her feel young, reminding her vividly of the terror from the night before. “I’m sorry I scared you. I’m alright.”

She can feel her father’s eyes on them, not judging but watching, and her cheeks flush at the thought of him seeing how intimately she and Natasha are staring into each other’s eyes.

“I’m not leaving you,” Natasha says fiercely, her knuckles white as she clutches the blanket, and Wanda knows that Natasha wants to touch her, needs to, to make sure she’s really okay. She lays her hand open on the bed, palm up, forcing calm onto her face even as tears spill down her sleep-soft cheeks.

“Good,” she whispers.

Natasha curls down, pressing frantic kisses from the tips of Wanda’s fingers all the way down to the bed of her palm and the heel of her hand, dampening the skin with her own tears. She wraps both of her hands around Wanda’s when she’s done, clutching at it and resting her forehead against the edge of the mattress.

“I’m okay,” Wanda says again, keeping her voice soft even as it shakes. “Shh. Nat, look at me. I’m here. I’m fine.”

“I was too far away,” Natasha says, voice muffled against the blanket. “I took a cab home because I couldn’t wait. I… I didn’t know what else to do. I shouldn’t have left. I shouldn’t have left you here. I _knew_ I shouldn’t have left. I could fucking _feel_ it but I left anyway and now--”

“Now you’re home,” Wanda says, giving her hand a squeeze. “And I’m here. I’m sorry for worrying you. I shouldn’t have sent that text. I was… I wasn’t really in my head last night.”

“Your mother and Peter will be home tomorrow afternoon,” Erik says from the doorway, and his face is nothing but tired kindness when Wanda looks up at him. “Natasha can stay as long as she likes. There will be waffles in the microwave when you two are hungry.”

He pauses.

“Are… are female pronouns okay, Natasha?”

Natasha actually lifts her head then, turning to look at Erik with an expression Wanda has never seen on her face before.

“Yeah,” she replies, clearing her throat when the word comes out rough. “Thank you. For asking.”

“I’ll be in my room if you two need me. No matter what it is. I’m here, okay?” He doesn’t step into the room but Wanda can tell he wants to, that he wants to lean down and kiss her on the forehead and pet her hair like she’s little again, undamaged, like he had last night. He smiles instead, giving them both a nod and pulling the door closed behind them, leaving them alone.

The blinds are closed, curtains drawn, the room dark and warm and grey, the time of day completely ambiguous. Wanda turns her attention back to Natasha and finds her eyes on her, studying her like she’s going to be taken away any second now, like she’s something worth remembering.

“You tired?” she asks softly.

“Exhausted,” Natasha sighs, thumb running over Wanda’s palm, looking so carefully hopeful that Wanda can’t help but smile. 

“Come sleep with me for awhile. I could stay in bed for two more weeks.” Wanda moves to her back, keeping hold of Natasha’s hand while she stands up, looking down at Wanda in that tight black skater dress, such a juxtaposition with her buzzed head that it makes Wanda squeeze her thighs together.

“Mind if I borrow something to sleep in? I came straight here. Left all my stuff back in Portland at my aunt’s house.” Natasha finally lets go of her hand and reaches behind her to unzip the dress, and Wanda can’t even blink as the fabric loosens, her pushed-up breasts easing from their exaggerated swell as she slips her arms out of the little cap sleeves, leaving her in a lacy black bra and black boyshort underwear, as close to naked as Wanda has ever seen her.

“T-The second drawer has t-shirts in it,” she replies, pushing herself to sit up a little, leaning back against the headboard, her eyes wide. “Anything you want. Under one condition.”

“What’s that?” Natasha opens the drawer and carefully lifts shirts to examine them, her smile not hidden very well at all.

“I get to watch you change,” Wanda says, the tips of her ears burning as heat floods her face. She manages not to look away when Natasha turns to her with a raised eyebrow, one hand disappearing behind her again, and Wanda’s heart starts to race when she realizes Natasha is unhooking her bra this time.

It falls off like it’s relieved to do so, straps slipping from her shoulders, cups releasing her breasts, leaving them bare and full and more beautiful than Wanda ever let herself imagine.

“Fuck,” she whispers, leaning forward, practically moving to her knees on the bed in a mindless effort to get closer. “Oh god, Nat--”

“Think I’m just gonna sleep like this,” Natasha tells her, the smile pulling on her mouth growing more seductive as she makes her way to the bed, crawling up onto it from the bottom, her breasts swinging heavy and so fucking soft.

“Can I…” Wanda whispers, not really sure how to finish the sentence, what she even wants to say, but she can’t look away, can’t take her eyes off of them, even when Natasha’s beautiful face is only inches away, smiling down at her from where she’s now kneeling in front of her, tits almost eye level with Wanda’s flushed face.

“Anything,” Natasha replies, sounding just as breathless as Wanda feels, moving as close as she can until her thighs are knocking against Wanda’s folded up legs, skin against bare skin. 

Wanda can’t speak, doesn’t know how to say all the right things to get what she wants, what she’s craving, and so she just sucks in a deep breath and moves, unfolding her legs and spreading them on either side of Natasha.

“Shit,” Natasha mumbles, her knees spreading to knock Wanda’s legs even wider, the weight of her soft body lowering down on top of Wanda’s, clothes still separating them but God, the smell of her. The heat of her. 

Wanda’s hands are shaking so hard they flutter where they touch Natasha’s bare sides, sliding gracelessly up over her ribs before they finally find what they’re seeking, before they cup Natasha’s bare tits in overflowing handfuls and squeeze them, making her gasp and Natasha groan.

“Wanna suck on ‘em,” she whispers, the pads of her thumbs circling around her tight, goosebumped nipples, the tips of her fingernails dragging over the sensitive points of them.

“Get your mouth on them,” Natasha huffs out, an order, and it makes Wanda shiver, her hands coming together to create a gorgeous swell of soft breasts so she can get her tongue between them, wiggling between the cleavage she’s made and kissing down over the surface of them, giving them equal attention as she keeps her thumbs and forefingers pinched firmly over her nipples.

“Yes ma’am,” she mumbles, her thighs coming together desperately when one of Natasha’s slides up between her legs, pressing full on against her cunt through her running shorts, her knee practically rubbing against it.

It’s all happening so fast, so perfectly that Wanda isn’t even sure she’s actually awake.

She bares down on that thigh, hips rocking distractedly as she draws one of Natasha’s nipples into her mouth, keeping her teeth away from it because she wants to be gentle, wants to give these gorgeous things the worship they deserve, wants to--

“Harder,” Natasha pants against the top of her head, one of her hands stroking Wanda’s hair back out of her face, petting her like she’s being good, doing good.

She wants to be a good girl for Natasha.

She sucks harder on her nipple, letting her teeth sink into the suctioned, puffy point of it, and she whimpers when Natasha cries out above her, her body going rigid before she starts to move even faster over top of her, moving like she’s thrusting, her thigh digging in even harder as Wanda grinds against it.

She doesn’t even realize she’s rubbing at Natasha’s lower belly until she feels the elastic waistband of her underwear against the tips of her fingers, until she feels Natasha’s hips straining toward her, begging of their own volition.

“Do it,” Natasha breathes, mouth against Wanda’s temple, dropping wet kisses onto newly sweaty skin. “God, baby, do it.”

It’s so hot inside her underwear, so damp as she slips her whole hand in, fingers sliding over the scant hair there before she gets to the real softness, to the lips that are wet, to the burning hot skin past them that is soaking wet, honey on her fingertips. 

Her mouth drops away from Natasha’s breast so she can focus on it, eyes slipping closed as that wet nipple rubs over the side of her face when Natasha continues to rock over top of her.

“You’re so wet,” she whispers, pressing firmly, rubbing at her inner lips and dipping inside of her the tiniest bit to gather more slick. Her face is buried between Natasha’s tits now, mouth bumping against the babysoft skin there and so she covers it in kisses, swallowing down the taste of her skin, the race of her heart against her suck-bruised mouth.

“Cause you turn me on like it’s your fuckin’ job,” Natasha says so close to her ear, and the low laugh that she huffs out makes Wanda hum, pleased and aroused in a way that’s like floating in warm water, all of her so safely contained under Natasha’s beautiful body that she can’t fathom anything bad in the world right now, not a single nightmaric memory. 

She strokes up over Natasha’s clit with two wet fingers, and the hard snap of Natasha’s hips makes her gasp, makes her tighten her thighs around the one between them, getting some friction on her own clit just to share the sensation.

“Like that?” she asks, kissing at Natasha’s collarbone, at the hollow of her throat while she rubs at the hard little knot just like she does to herself. Natasha’s arms are around her head now, cradling her, surrounding her with the scent of her deodorant and the musk of her underarms, with the fresh smell of her sweat and the faint scent of cigarettes on soft, overheated skin.

“Just like that,” Natasha pants, her voice gone rough and gravelly, the bed thumping lightly against the wall as she fucks down against Wanda’s hand and between her legs with that magic thigh of hers. “Suck my tits please suck my tits--”

She cuts herself off with a growl when Wanda ducks her head again and catches the unsucked nipple between her lips, moaning when Natasha falls down on top of her, practically smothering her with her big, dreamsoft breasts.

She sucks hard, her arm twisted at an awkward angle but she keeps at it, rubbing Natasha’s clit with a devoted determination, the sound of it getting sloppier as more slick floods her fingers. They don’t speak anymore, both beyond words, the room filled with the strain of the boxsprings, the wet suck of Wanda’s mouth, the continuous low groan coming from Natasha, and the hard slap of Wanda’s body as she bangs her cunt against Natasha’s firm thigh.

They come within seconds of each other, and Wanda can’t keep up the frantic rub of her fingers so she just digs them in and lets Natasha bear down on them, putting all of her weight on Wanda’s hand as she rides it out, soaking her nearly all the way to the wrist. They’re grinding against each other now, the back of her hand pressed against her own pussy that is throbbing as she comes, her thighs shaking from clutching up around Natasha’s so hard. 

She lets go of Natasha’s breast and buries her face between them again, tears tumbling down her cheeks without warning even as she shakes all over, her insides convulsing and gushing out more come, leaving her panties flooded, her shorts sticky, and Natasha’s thigh damp.

“I was so scared,” Natasha says, suddenly so close, fingers tucking Wanda’s hair behind her ears as their sweaty, tear-streaked faces drag together. “I can’t lose you. I just got you, I can’t lose you, Wanda. God, I can’t lose you I can’t--”

“Shh,” Wanda manages, her chin trembling as she wraps her arms around her neck, the dam broken and now she can’t be close enough, can’t get enough of her, doesn’t know how she ever thought Natasha was anything but an extension of her own body in the first place. “I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere, okay? I’m not.”

“I won’t let you,” Natasha whispers, her mouth so full and warm just like the rest of her, and it’s ghosting over Wanda’s. “You’re safe. Cause you’re my girl now.”

Wanda feels herself go lax, feels her body melting back into the bed, and when Natasha finally kisses her it’s like being submerged in all that warm, dark water, unseen by anyone but her, cradled and protected and held. She runs a heavy hand over the back of Natasha’s velvet-soft head and opens her mouth, letting Natasha inside, another connection forged.

They can never part again, not truly. Not anymore.

 

They shower separately when they wake up, both of them changing into thin, clinging tanktops and lazy sleep pants without panties before they go downstairs, heading straight for the kitchen.

“Jesus, it’s three in the afternoon,” Natasha laughs, opening the fridge to poke around while Wanda reheats the waffles.

“Are you feeling well-rested?” Wanda asks, dividing the waffles up onto two plates and smearing them with butter. She smiles when she feels Natasha sidle up behind her, arms going around her waist, Natasha’s warm mouth against the nape of her neck.

“I was until I realized I can see your nipples through this tanktop,” she mumbles, her hands sliding up to cup Wanda’s tits, pushing them up and together before she starts to rub them. Wanda lets out a shaky exhale, reaching for the syrup and drowning the waffles in it, her body sinking back against Natasha’s helplessly.

“And now?” she asks, trying to keep her voice even as Natasha rubs at her nipples through paperthin jersey.

“Now I feel like a fuckin’ perv because all I can think about is fucking you right here against the counter,” Natasha says right against her ear, her hips shoving hard against Wanda’s ass, digging in there as she tugs down on her tanktop, one of her breasts almost popping out over the neckline.

“Girls? Are you up?” Erik’s voice echoes down the stairs and into the kitchen, and Wanda can only grin when Natasha groans, giving Wanda’s breasts one last squeeze before she lets go. Wanda hurries to fix her tanktop, shoving her tits back down into it and grabbing up one of the plates to hand it to Natasha.

“Yeah, Dad!” She hands Natasha a fork and beams at the genuine pout on her lips, leaning over to press a kiss to her mouth just as her dad walks into the kitchen. They both look over to find him smiling knowingly, shaking his head as he reaches into the fridge and grabs two bottles of water, handing one to each of them.

“Stay hydrated,” he says, giving Wanda a wink that she can’t help but blush over, her whole body slumping over as she takes the bottle and walks past him toward the living room.

“Dad, _please_ ,” she sighs, settling down on the couch and smiling when Natasha stretches her legs out over her lap.

“So, what do you girls have planned for the day?” he asks, sitting on the arm of the chair nearby, leaning over to grab the remote and hand it to Wanda. She takes it with a roll of her eyes at the terrible attempt at innocence on his face, passing the remote to Natasha and cutting into her waffles.

“Dunno,” she replies, keeping her eyes down so she doesn’t have to look around the living room too much, avoiding thinking about last night and Maria and the hand at the window as much as she can. “I’m still tired. Just…”

“Drained, I bet,” Erik says with a sympathetic smile, reaching over to touch the side of Wanda’s head briefly. “Just take it easy today, okay? We can order take-out and you girls can just relax. I’ll stay out of your hair. As long as you don’t spend _all_ day in your room.”

She nods, keeping her eyes down, chewing the piece of waffle in her mouth until it’s practically mush.

“Ooh, we should make a blanket fort here in the living room,” Natasha says out of nowhere. Erik gasps before Wanda can even react, and both girls look over at him in surprise.

“Okay, can I help design it? Please? Please!?” He’s already on his feet, eyes darting around the room.

“He’s an architect,” Wanda informs Natasha, looking over at her with a smile out of the corner of her eyes. “You’ve just made his whole day.”

 

The fort takes a couple of hours to build, and it’s infinitely more complex than it would have been if Natasha and Wanda had built it alone. The blankets are suspended from the ceiling from a series of wires, and they’re pinned together to create one big sheet that drapes down like a massive tent to the ground. Wanda works on gathering all the blankets in the house and stringing up fairy lights inside while Erik and Natasha lay down pillows and set up a little table in a corner for a light and chargers for phones and laptops.

They layer the blankets until the floor of the fort is like walking on a cloud, everything soft and close and warm. Erik orders Thai, and Natasha does dishes while Wanda finishes up her paper, all of them meeting back up in the living room when the doorbell rings.

The house feels like a different place tonight, like nothing could go wrong, like last night hadn’t actually happened at all. They eat around the coffee table while _Bob’s Burgers_ plays on the TV, and Wanda carefully avoids her dad’s gaze, avoids the gentle but persistent questions she can tell he wants to ask but won’t.

“Your dad’s fucking amazing,” Natasha tells her when they’re alone, all the lights off except the fairy lights inside the blanket fort, lighting the whole room low and gold. Natasha is sitting right in the center of the space on a bed of pillows, looking rested and content, her eyes practically glowing as she smiles up at Wanda.

“He’s cool most of the time,” Wanda says, turning to put some clothespins on the opening of the fort, closing it up to any prying eyes before she goes over to her girlfriend, sinking to her knees right in front of her and smiling when Natasha reaches for her hand. “I think I’ve kind of made their lives a living hell the last year or so.”

Natasha guides her to lie back, guides Wanda’s head to rest on her thigh before she starts to stroke through the wilds of Wanda’s hair, taming it one careful finger-brush at a time.

“It’s not your fault,” Natasha says after a moment, giving Wanda just enough time to relax, for her eyes to fall closed, her guard coming down a little.

“I know,” she replies softly, hands resting on her tummy while Natasha pets her, tensing just a little from being touched while her eyes are closed, but the smell of Natasha is familiar now, is just as much of a feeling of safety as the sight of her is. “It doesn’t matter. It’s still true.”

“They don’t blame you. I think they just worry about you. We can’t help but worry.” Natasha’s fingertips slide over the shell of her ear, so, so carefully touching the most sensitive skin and making her shiver.

“I didn’t want to call them last night,” Wanda confesses, the relief of the admission washing over her, overwriting the shame. “Peter’s had to put up with me being fucked up and getting all the attention while he’s out there getting all As and going to state with the track team. He’s busting his ass and being amazing, and all I have to do is stay in my room and not eat, and everyone’s falling all over themselves. I just wanted him to have this weekend for himself. To have all the attention because he deserves it. And I went and fucked it up.”

She shrugs, not saying any of it for attention, for Natasha to deny it. It’s just the truth.

“I’m so lucky,” she says after a beat. “That he doesn’t hate me.”

There are a few taps on a keyboard, and some low music starts up, filling in all the aching, silent spaces in their little fort.

“Who is this?” she asks.

“Heliotropes,” Natasha replies, her hands taking up petting through Wanda’s hair once more. “He couldn’t hate you. Not for anything. This may be hard for them, but there’s no one in the world it’s harder for than you. Don’t ever forget that.”

Wanda goes quiet then, her bottom lip caught between her teeth as the song plays on, slurred and grungy in a moody girl’s voice. She would rather be talking about absolutely anything else right now, but she deserves to be confronted with it, to have to talk about it. Dr. Jones would probably even agree.

“Wanda?”

“Hmm?”

“Did you really see someone last night? At your window?” She sounds so hesitant, like she doesn’t want to hear the truth, like she knows the answer already.

“Yes,” Wanda whispers, turning on her side, tucking her face against Natasha’s warm stomach. She pauses, chest aching as she forces herself to ask the next question. “Do you believe me?”

“Of course I do.” Natasha curls down over her, mouth brushing over her cheek, her lips soft as a rose petal, the kiss sweet, quick. “I wish it was just you being dramatic or imaginative, but… I saw the note. It can’t be a coincidence.”

“Who is this?” Wanda lifts her hand and points vaguely toward the laptop.

“Lush,” Natasha replies, one hand rubbing up and down Wanda’s bare arm, like she’s touching her just because she can now, like she can’t get enough. “I think I’m gonna go up there at night from now on. Just fuckin’ camp out there and wait. Just in case.”

“No.” Wanda turns over onto her back again and looks up at Natasha, her eyes silently pleading. “I won’t let you get wrapped up in this. He’s taken enough of my life. He’s not taking up yours, too.”

Natasha’s full mouth pulls into a line.

“But--”

“Please, Nat. Please?”

Natasha sighs, tipping her head back to look at the ceiling of their blanket fort before she meets Wanda’s eyes again, her smile small, sad. She shrugs.

“Alright,” she says finally. “On one condition.”

Wanda grins, reaching up for one of Natasha’s hands and lacing their fingers together, still shy about touching her so freely but it’s like an anchor now, something keeping her tethered to the present and firmly out of her own head.

“Name it.”

“You have to let me be the big spoon while we watch _Carol_.”

Wanda’s eyes widen as she grins at Natasha.

“Deal. I’ve never seen _Carol_ before.” She pulls herself up so they can rearrange themselves, stacking up pillows so they can both see the laptop screen. Wanda realizes that Natasha is staring at her in amazement, shaking her head slowly.

“Oh, Wanda,” she says seriously. “You’re so lucky you found me.”

“I could’ve told you that,” she replies, giving a bright burst of laughter when Natasha tackles her to the pillows, each kiss she leaves on her skin like a point of light, chasing out any residual darkness.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is it! thank you all so much for reading, for spending time with me and these girls. it means the world to me. <3

“What is _that_?”

Natasha doesn’t move from the lazy sprawl on her bed, but she’s squinting at Wanda as she settles onto her bed in front of her laptop. Wanda raises an eyebrow at her and holds up the glass, not looking away from Natasha’s incredulous face as she takes a sip of her drink, licking her lips after she swallows.

“Coconut water,” she says, leaning over to set it on the nightstand after taking another drink. “It’s good. And it’s good for you.”

“It looks like come on ice,” Natasha replies, flopping over onto her back and looking over at her screen, her tits looking amazing even in just an old black Smashing Pumpkins t-shirt with no bra. “Does it taste like come on ice?”

Wanda grins, folding her legs up in her lap and leaning forward, speaking quietly so that her sleeping family can’t possibly hear her.

“Why don’t you come over so I can do a taste test?”

“Mmm,” Natasha hums, turning over onto her stomach and shifting on the bed so that she’s close to the screen, her voice dropping to a wickedly low purr. “I never expected you to be so dirty. You look like such a good girl. If only I’d known what I was getting into.”

“Yeah? Do you still think I’m a pillow princess?” Wanda grins as Natasha gapes and sputters, her flushed cheeks visible even in the low light in her room.

“I never--! That’s not what I said! I said you _weren’t_ a pillow princess, and that it was a pleasant surprise!”

Wanda blinks innocently, reaching over for her come-on-ice and taking another, savoring drink.

“So you _thought_ I would just lay back and ask to be serviced?”

Natasha whimpers, moving even closer until all Wanda can see is her face, her pouting mouth.

“I didn’t mean it. I shouldn’t have said it. Please forgive me,” she mumbles, the speakers crackling a little as Natasha rests her forehead on the top of her laptop.

“I was just teasing you,” she replies softly, her smile small and adoring when Natasha leans back to look at her again. “I’m not upset. Promise.”

She hesitates for a beat, gathering up a little courage as she clutches her glass.

“Actually, um. I was kind of… I’ve been thinking lately. About how this is my first time with a girl, and about gender roles and all that. And… I don’t want to enforce stereotypes or anything, that’s not--”

“You can say anything to me,” Natasha interrupts gently. “Anything at all.”

“I kind of like it when you take control,” Wanda rushes out, her face flushed, fingertips numb from cold glass. “Like… like a lot.”

It’s Natasha’s turn to raise an eyebrow, and Wanda knows without hesitation that it’s much sexier when she does it.

“Oh, yeah?”

Wanda nods, chewing on her bottom lip and looking up at Natasha through her lashes, feeling as shy as she did with Natasha on that very first day they met.

“It just… it feels amazing because I can trust you? And I can just let go and let you take charge and I don’t--”

She stops when she realizes that Natasha is frowning and leaning forward, her head tipped to one side like she’s trying to see around Wanda.

Wanda stares at her, a tiny curl of fear unravelling in her stomach.

“...What?”

Natasha’s gaze is fixed now, directly behind her, and Wanda swears that all the color has drained from her face. She curls down over her keyboard, and Wanda just shakes her head when she hears Natasha typing frantically.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

An instant message pops up from Natasha, and all Wanda can think about is how massive Natasha’s eyes are, how terrified she looks as she reads the IM:

_somebody is in your room_

_i saw him come out of your closet and he’s right behind you_

_RUN_

“Wh--”

A hand clamps over her mouth from behind before she can scream.

“NO!” She tries to shriek, the glass falling out of her hand and spilling all over her, soaking the front of her shirt. She feels him on the bed now, feels his weight as he shoves her back on the bed, one hand tight around her throat while the other one stays on her mouth.

“Shut the fuck up,” he growls, the same voice from her nightmares, from all those days and weeks in that room, the same voice who said the most sickeningly sweet things to her and who threatened to carve her up with the knife he dragged between her legs. Her vision goes white just before her eyes close, and she gets one last full breath sucked in that she uses to sob, the sounds coming from the deepest place in her, the hollowed out place in her that is nothing but despair, but darkness, but this man.

She hears the sound of the zip-tie that he uses to secure her wrists with, and he backhands her so hard across the face that stars explode behind her closed eyes, pain filling every part of her being, bringing her back down into the moment so fast that she feels like she’s going to throw up.

“You knew this was gonna happen,” he says with a rueful sigh. A slap across her other cheek, this one catching her mouth, and she feels the wetness, the blood from her busted lip spilling down her chin. “I don’t know why you wouldn’t listen. You always thought you knew better than me. I was right, wasn’t I, darling? You belong to me, don’t you?”

“No,” she cries pitifully, blood in her mouth making the words bubble, her hands fluttering together like the clipped wings of birds against his chest, useless, ineffectual. “No, I don’t!”

It’s the last thing she says before he stretches duct tape across her mouth, uncaring about all the blood soaking through.

“C’mon! Time to go.” He lifts her like she’s nothing, throwing her over his shoulder and opening her bedroom door. 

It’s dark in the hall but she’s sinking fast, dissolving into the kind of panic that she doesn’t think she’ll ever recover from again, that leaves her unable to do anything but hang limp over his shoulder and cry like she hasn’t in so, so long. 

He’s nearly silent on the stairs, and through the sound of blood rushing through her ears, Wanda hears Natasha’s voice in her head, clear as if she was standing right there.

_You aim for dick, stomach, throat, and eyes. You kick and kick and run like hell. Mash your fucking thumbs in his eyes, kick him in the balls, and run. Or slam the heel of your hand straight up against his nose._

She takes a deep breath, forcing enough calm into herself to reclaim use of her limbs, to push all her strength into them as she struggles against his grip, using the way his arm tightens around her waist so she can bring her knees up and slam them into his chest one at a time.

“You fucking cunt,” he hisses, arm loosening as he tries to change his grip on her. She throws herself backwards with as much force as she can, knowing in that single instant that they’re still on the stairs, that now as he loses his hold on her that she has nowhere to go but down.

She slams into the steps and rolls down them, hitting the bottom in what would normally be a boneless heap, but adrenaline makes her shoot straight up to her feet, both her hands coming up to rip the tape from her mouth. She sucks in a huge gasp of air, directing her voice past the man charging down the stairs at her in a fury up to her parents, to their closed door.

“DADDY MOM HELP ME. HELP ME HELP ME HE’S TRYING TO TAKE ME.”

“God _damnit_ , you fucking bitch--” He’s on her even as she turns to run for the front door, grabbing the messy bun of her hair and dragging her toward him. There’s movement upstairs, raised voices, her father’s yell echoing indistinctly down the stairs.

“HELP ME,” she shrieks, twisting in his grip on her hair to turn and face him so she can bring her bound hands up and slam the heels of both of them into his nose, breaking it with a satisfying crack. She stumbles back when he lets go, falling on the rug behind the couch before she drags herself up again, reaching for the front door and unlocking it with violently shaking hands, not even hearing the alarm that starts to sound.

It’s cool outside, a peaceful spring night shattered when she runs down the steps of the front porch and onto the lawn. She slips on the damp grass, and this time she collapses in a heap, turning to curl up on her side in the fetal position, her hands curling manically to try and cover her face, to hide her from what is about to happen. She’s crying so hard she can’t catch a breath, can’t do anything but shake from her ball on the ground, her mouth open in a silent sob that feels like it is never, ever going to end.

She doesn’t know how much time has passed before she vaguely realizes that he isn’t coming after her. That there are other sounds, other voices. That there’s the sound of a man in pain and a girl growling, yelling so loud that her voice has gone hoarse. There’s the sound of fists hitting a body, a sound Wanda knows too well, that she can never forget.

She opens her eyes and dares to lift her head, and that’s as far as she gets before she’s frozen in place again.

Natasha is there, on her lawn, her small body on top of his much bigger one, and she is beating the fuck out of him.

The sounds of her fists hitting his face are wet now, and the way he’s struggling under her is weak, like he’s barely conscious.

“Nat?” she manages to whisper.

There’s a startling burst of noise from the house, and her entire family pours out of it, every one of them stopping at the top of the steps to stare in shock at Natasha and Wanda’s terrorizer, no one able to move for what feels like years while Natasha brings her foot up to press across his throat, holding him down as she leans over, her voice a low whisper that Wanda can’t hear.

“Natasha, honey,” Erik finally says, dashing down the stairs like he’s finally woken up. He grabs Natasha around the shoulders and gives her an awkward hug from behind as he tries to lift her up. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s alright.”

“Wanda!” Another, unfamiliar voice so closeby, female. Wanda can’t help but cry out when she feels arms wrap around her and pull her up from the grass. “Oh, sweet girl. Oh, Lord, please. Wanda, sweetheart. Are you alright?”

Wanda starts to cry then, unable to take her eyes off of Natasha who is standing now in a daze, staring down at where Erik is using the roll of duct tape from the man’s bag to bind his arms behind his back. She looks up and realizes that it’s Ana Romanoff holding her, using the sleeve of her sweatshirt to try and clean the blood from Wanda’s face, that she’s ghost white and crying, staring at Wanda like she’s afraid she’ll disappear.

“...A-Ana--M-M-Mrs. Romanoff?”

“Shh,” Ana says, her voice low like Natasha’s, soothing. “I’ve called the police. They should be here any second. It’s okay now. It’s alright.”

“Wanda baby ohmygod.” More arms, more body heat. Natasha. Natasha.

“Nat,” she whispers, her chest jumping as she gasps, hiccupping little sobs that hurt, that make her just cry harder, all of it pouring out of her in a flood as she tries unsuccessfully to wrap for Natasha with her bound hands.

Natasha pulls Wanda into her lap, and Wanda feels the most incredible relief when Natasha pulls Wanda’s arms to drape over her shoulders. There are more hands on her back, petting her hair, Mom and Peter’s voices right behind her, all of them touching her but she’s only touching one person, only clinging to one person, only breathing because of one person.

“Natasha,” she manages to mumble against her ear, tucking her face against her neck for a safe place to hide as she finally, finally passes out.

 

She wakes again in a white room nearly identical to the one she’d woken up in last spring, only this time, she’s not alone.

Natasha gives her hand a squeeze before she even fully opens her eyes, and it calms Wanda immediately, lets her know she’s safe even as the memories of what had happened come rushing back, unprompted and unwelcome.

“Hey, sugartits,” Natasha murmurs, making Wanda grin even as tears fall down her tired cheeks. She tips her head to one side and meets Natasha’s eyes, searching them while Natasha runs the pad of her thumb over Wanda’s knuckles and leans forward in her chair, still in the Pumpkins shirt and striped sleep pants she’d been wearing on Skype.

“Didn’t think you were serious about that one,” she replies, her voice scraped raw from screaming, from the massive hand crushing her throat, trying to silence her.

Natasha smiles, the saddest smile Wanda has ever seen, the tears in her eyes making them a green that doesn’t even exist in nature. Wanda closes her eyes again when Natasha reaches up to pet her hair back, gentle fingertips against her scalp, curling along the shell of her ear to tuck a stray strand there.

“How you feelin’?” she says softly.

“I’ve been better,” Wanda manages, the words watery and shaking. She keeps her eyes closed and doesn’t fight the tears that want to fall. “Is… is he..?”

“In another hospital in a locked ward being treated for a broken face and a concussion? Yes.” Her fingers don’t stop petting for even a second, her voice a balm on Wanda’s entire being. 

“You saved my life,” Wanda whispers, forcing her eyes open to meet Natasha’s, her chin trembling, every inch of her body hurting, but she tightens her grip on Natasha’s hand, will never let her go.

Natasha shakes her head, her sad smile sweetening as she leans in so close Wanda can smell her, can smell the blood still on her knuckles, smell the grass and the sweat and her warm skin.

“You saved yourself,” Natasha murmurs, thumb stroking just above Wanda’s eyebrow, back and forth. “I just made sure he couldn’t follow you.”

Wanda has to bite her lip to keep from denying it, from arguing, and she lets go when she feels a sharp burst of pain where her lip is busted, pulled tight from what feels like a few stitches.

“Do we know anything about him?” she asks, trying to sound more level-headed than she’s feeling, anything to make this feel more real.

Natasha sighs, the tips of her fingers running back and forth over the side of Wanda’s face.

“His name is Brock Rumlow. Worked at some garage downtown. Has a wife and two kids. Apparently he was arrested not long after you got away for a DUI, driving on a suspended license, _and_ possession of cocaine. He’s been locked up for a year.”

“That’s why he hasn’t come after me until now,” Wanda says to herself, all the pieces falling into place, but it doesn’t make her feel any better. 

“They found the place where he kept you. It was out on his property, outside of town. The police are searching it right now. He’s gonna be locked up for the rest of his life, babe. He’s going to be gone for real this time.”

The words echo around in her mind for a long, quiet moment, the truth of them not sinking in, not yet. 

“H-How was he in the house? How was he in my room? How long had he been in there?” She realizes that she’s shaking, and when she realizes it, it only gets worse. 

“Shh. Shh, hey. Hey, look at me. Look at me, Wanda.” Every inch of her face hurts, feels completely raw, but when Natasha cups her cheek it’s like a balm. She sucks in a deep breath and holds it, forcing herself to look up at her, into Natasha’s eyes that are burning into hers.

“There’s plenty of time for everything. To talk about everything, to figure it all out. But all that matters right now is getting you out of here, getting you home, and doing everything we can to make sure you’re okay.”

“He almost had me,” she whispers, searching Natasha’s eyes pleadingly as she reaches up to cover her hand with her own. “I panicked and I didn’t fight back and he almost _had me_.”

“But he doesn’t,” Natasha says softly, leaning down until they’re eye level, thumb rubbing a circle on the apple of her cheek. “He doesn’t have you. _I_ do.”

Wanda smiles as best as she can, the skin pinching around the stitches.

“Yeah,” she replies, letting out a long, slow breath, calm seeping in around the edges of her fear as she lets that sink in. 

“And you know what?” Natasha stands up and slides onto the bed, in the topmost corner of it. Wanda scoots over, sore all over but nothing feels broken, making just enough room for Natasha to stretch out on her side next to her.

“Hmm?” She moves to her own side, hissing a little at the pain in her ribs, probably from her graceful tumble down the stairs. She can almost pretend they’re home in her bed, that none of this happened.

“I’m proud of you,” Natasha tells her, so quiet, not even blinking as she says it. Wanda believes her even if she immediately wants to deny it, to argue with her. She gives a tiny huff of laughter, shakes her head.

“Why?”

“Because you healed even though he was still out there, even when everything felt unresolved. You healed enough to let someone in. To let _me_ in. You trusted people to be your support even when you were terrified to do it, and all together, we took him down. And that’s all because of _you_. Do you understand that? _You_ did it.”

“Kiss me,” Wanda whispers, just barely a breath as she moves in closer, trying to tuck in against Natasha. “Please.”

Natasha drapes a leg over Wanda’s, arm slipping up around her neck to cradle the back of her head as she presses the most gentle kiss to Wanda’s mouth, so sweet it makes Wanda sigh, her lips parting against Natasha’s. She moans when Natasha licks into her, invades her and presses in tight, their breasts soft against each other.

“Nat, let the girl sleep,” comes a voice from behind Wanda, followed by a few laughs. 

“Love is the best medicine,” Natasha mumbles to her mother, not bothering to pull her mouth away from Wanda’s to do it.

“You’re gonna stay overnight for observation, just to make sure you didn’t hit your head too hard,” Magda says, her small, careful hands rubbing at Wanda’s back. “We’ll all be right here.”

Wanda leans back enough to meet Natasha’s eyes, asking a question she can’t seem to verbalize. Natasha smiles, the backs of her knuckles running over Wanda’s cheek.

“I’ll be right here,” she promises. “If you’ll let me.”

Wanda can hear everyone else leaving, quiet voices fading as they disappear back down the hallway, but she can’t look anywhere but right at Natasha.

“I never want you to be anywhere else,” she tells her, eyes slipping closed as Natasha nuzzles their foreheads together, pulling the thin blanket up to cover their bodies, shielding them from the light and from prying eyes.

 

“Always put mint in containers, even if you plant them in the ground. It’s invasive and will just take over your whole entire garden.” Ana is red-faced and covered in dirt, but she’s smiling as Wanda leans over to firmly push her peppermint into the hole she dug, twisting it to make sure it’s seated as deep as it can go. 

“How’s that?” Wanda asks, turning to look at her over her shoulder from under the wide brim of the straw hat Ana had insisted on letting her borrow, the one that makes her feel like a PTA mom but that Natasha had promised looked cute as hell on her.

“Good,” Ana praises, rubbing her back between her shoulders before she hoists herself to her feet. “Just fill it in with dirt and we’ll water all of them after dinner.”

“Food’s almost ready!” Natasha yells from the Maximoffs’ backyard, the smell from the grill making Wanda’s mouth water, reminding her that it’s summer. Ana goes back into the house to wash her hands, and Wanda stands up, tugging off her gloves and her hat and the long-sleeved shirt covering her bathing suit top. She stands where she is and closes her eyes, taking a deep breath, inhaling the warm afternoon, the smell of the food she’s about to eat with her new, tenuously-combined family, letting the heat of the sun wash over her and her bared scars.

Ana still has a bible study group over twice a week, but she also has Wanda over for dinner sometimes and lets Natasha take her out on dates on weekends, as long as they’re home by eleven. When Natasha came over in tears last week and told Wanda that her mom had joined PFLAG, Wanda had marched right over to the Romanoffs and thrown her arms around Ana’s neck, not letting go until Ana sighed and gave in and finally hugged her back.

And now here she is, planting her first herb garden with Ana’s help, about to stuff her face with veggies Natasha is grilling just for her, and motherfucking Brock Rumlow is spending the rest of his life at Oregon State Penitentiary. 

“You okay?” comes Natasha’s quiet voice from behind her, a single second passing before her back is covered in warmth and softness, Natasha’s smiling mouth pressing kisses along her jaw.

“Yeah,” she sighs, relaxing back against her, letting Natasha’s hands drift over her bare stomach, arching when they drift lower rubbing over the letters that Rumlow carved into her that have been very cleverly covered by a butterfly tattoo that is still healing, the skin raised and tender.

She closes her eyes and rests her arms on top of Natasha’s, baring the summer-brown line of her neck for Natasha’s warm mouth. She smiles, serene, every single muscle in her body relaxed.

“I’m perfect.”


End file.
